My goal is purely to protect my personal assets from lawsuits that may occur with rental properties that i have in Philly.1) Is there an advantage to setting up the LLC in Pennsylvania vs another state?

@Chad Michaels  what you describe 30k houses that are perfect and an agent who is going to do all this work is pure fantasy.. you may find those in little towns scattered about the mid west  you know little 5k towns 100 miles from a major metro area. but not in anykind of metro area those would all be urban core and would be the opposite you describe.as for new construction with no money no credit and no experience that too is a FULL blown pipe dream... only one with half a brain that would finance you on that is your  inner circle and family type of set up.100% JV deals are avalaible to those that as @Karen Margrave mentions those that bring something to the party...

If you wanted to, you could invest your whole crowdfunding portfolio purely in deals with IRR's 25-30%+.  

In any event though, purely from a technical perspective (and not risk management perspective), you do not need an LLC to start wholesaling.

We have turned buying a house at every duty station that makes sense and coupled with buying pure rentals to build our empire. 

We have slowly grown our "empire" through pure rentals and other houses we have rented when we leave! 

But it sounds like it might be a little difficult to cash-flow on the units and can be purely an equity play.

Tenants take on a different mentality than just pure renters; they'll take care of your property better.If they bail, you keep the deposit.

Run your numbers for doing an all cash deal and if you are not getting a pure 10% return on YOUR money I would as an investor RUN in the other direction. 

I have no idea in your area, so purely hypothetical) 4,416 = $39,744 Gross operating income.