Hey Bigger Pockets community, I'm just starting out in Step 1 (get educated) on what I want to become a successful career in real estate investment.I also currently run an e-commerce business that is currently completely online, but would benefit from having a brick & mortar storefront, and I had an idea that maybe using the investment capital I'm looking to allocate into real estate into a commercial property my business can operate out of until I decide to sell the property in or rent it out to another business.I am obviously very naive when it comes to the complexity of any good real estate deal (especially commercial VS residential), but I'm hoping to spend as much time learning from everyone here who is on their journey as well.My main concern with the idea of buying commercial to operate my business out of it that I might struggle to rent it out afterwards and that there may likely be depreciation in the commercial real estate market over the next 5 years.I understand there is a lot of nuance depending on the local market but I'm guessing commercial is even less of a "safe" bet than finding a solid residential deal to leverage in some way.

Modeling uses templates to estimate allocations although some firms still dig very deep on these types of studies, costing $1,000–$1,250.DIY tools are cheaper but often miss deductions and lack audit-ready documentation.

It sounds like you understand that you can only 1031 the real estate and will have to pay tax on the portion allocated to the business FFE. 

The IRS defines a “quality” cost segregation study as “a study that is both accurate and well documented with regard to” 1) the classification of property into classes, 2) Explanation of rationale for the classification of the property and 3) substantiation of the cost basis of each asset and reconciliation of the total allocated costs to total actual costs.

Quick math, $2.8M equity + $1.8M cash = $4.6MSo take that $4.6M and re-allocate it, buy SFR with cash, and target appreciating areas.

Should each property be allocated its own LLC, or should one LLC contain all properties? 

My recommendation, depending on income, is to get 2-8 total properties per city and really allocate 40-60% of your intended investment before moving to the next city.

For house hacking, ensure rental and personal use are properly allocated for deductions.

And this leaves you with some interesting options because you can allocate your proceeds any way you want. 

My next comments are ONLY for tax purposes and may not align with how the waterfall works in the offering.Your syndicator may treat all distributions paid to you, up to your full capital balance and any allocated debt, as a return of capital for tax purposes.