@Eve Oliver If you are looking to only do part time, I would suggest that you find a transaction based brokerage vs the traditional brokerage where they take 20%-50% every transaction. 

If you do start with a commercial property, and the lender is okay with the LLC, then when you write the offer, just write it in your name, or/and assignee and just open up an LLC after you got your offer accepted and close in that company.There is no benefit to have opened the LLC earlier unless you buy for cash an REO property which requires that you don't change the name of the buyer.All the answers above from @Omar Khan , @Steve Vaughan and @Eve Mahoney are great answers. 

Eve Mahoney Well, who in their right mind would lend to them without collateral?

And a cracked pipe is eve less pleasant.

Eve, thank you and I will.

I am located in jacksonville in jacksonville florida and am also an avid real estate investor with more than a 30 property portfolio consisting of primarily self storage, Carwash's and eve a 400 acre hunting lodge.

I remember writing 8 ridiculous offer for this young investor on New Year's Eve because he was convince that he had to offer no more that 70% of asking price.

And I hate to get political on this wonderful forum, but the idea was fabricated by paranoids and liberals who hate progress and want to end all technology forever so that we can resume our "natural state" of walking around on our knuckles naked like our ape-ish predecesors (or adam and eve).

I love my job, but after 6-8 years of working 9 am-9pm, I find myself on the eve of the last year of my 20's finally getting spooked about retirement, and the true gravity of what the future may hold especially with our current political climate.

With the current prices in the SoCal market, I can't eve see how paying a mortgage with a VA loan would even be a good play but yet I see so many people encouraging it.