All lights were green and there was a pileup, leaving behind a mess of twisted metal and broken glass, and a few personal injuries to boot.The syndicator crowd coined the phrase "survive until '25" under the hope that by 2025 interest rates would correct and their deals would be fine. 

You said, "I'll have to put in extra of my own money for reserves..."

Now, if you were NOT a "real estate professional" you would only be able to:grab the rental income ($100k) and subtract that from the rental expenses/depreciation ($117k), now that extra $17k loss can only be used to offset future rental income, not the W-2 income and dividends and interest income. 

You definitely would want to read through the county laws again.If you don't want the extra load up front, best to wait until you get the license.

I’ve consulted several different people and they have told me in my situation as an investor expanding their portfolio it makes more sense to keep the extra cash as opposed to paying down rentals.

Look to see how you can earn extra money while also cutting your spending. 

We closed the LLC because it was not giving us protection since the properties and mortgages are under our names instead of the LLC, so it was extra work and cost for no benefitQuestions:1-I assume we need to issue 1099 for these contractors even though we are not incorporated, right?

The quotes were only a few hundred dollars extra annually.

The other thing that was nice is that you can pay the loan back as soon as possible but they didn't allow extra payments. 

While I believe that breed-specific legislation is wrong, I also believe that, if you own a controversial breed, then you need to be an extra-responsible owner.