If you work the valuations out right you can purchase a duplex with your 1031 exchange that will allow you to move into one half immediately again. 

You can't really look at the ones the realtors have since they overprice them hard trying to raise the value of stuff, but They are selling for a lot less than people think. 

I'm optimistic bad ones will be deported.3.

Far more costly to transfer property at a later point than simply purchase in an LLC on day one.

Quote from @Gregory Wilson: A few things there, Brendan.First, an LLC with you as a member and your (wife, son, pal, etc.) partner as a 1% member will file a Form 1065 which is about one tenth as likely to be audited by the IRS as a Form 1040 with a Schedule E rental activity (which I presume you will attempt to show is an active business).Second, you want an LLC because when your local Alabama handyman drives his girlfriend's uninsured truck into a van load of U of A medical school interns on I-22 when he goes  to get some shingles for your roof, on your business, you don't lose everything you have or ever will have to an uninsured claim. 

Stu you sound like one of those ambulance chasing attorneys.

One is under contract in which I plan to 1031 into something larger and the other I just plan to keep as the contract expires soon.

A one-person show isn’t gonna cut it.

My personal opinion: he's not the only one "doing it right" but he's definitely on the very short list of those that are.Just my .02note: I don't participate in his deals.

I used a hard money loan to purchase this off market deal.I rehabbed the upper two units within two and a half weeks and have a renter already lined up for one unit.