Starting a real estate business anywhere comes with its challenges, and Texas is no exception.

What you do for one, you do for all without exception.  

And you can tailor it to you, so 1) You certainly don't have to charge 100% while vacant (dependent on bldg. layout, thermostat access, etc.) and 2) You can tailor the Gas/Electric as you have brought up so maybe 50/50 all except 60 unit 1/40 unit 2 for electricity... etc. 

Reliable tenants are the exception, not the norm.How do you target reliable tenants?

You write well (except for the "eye trouble") and appear to be intelligent enough to test through much of a degree. 

You can read about it here.This seems to be just another up-front money scam except one level up and for slightly bigger dollars.

However, you CAN choose to have it taxed as a C Corp on form 1120 or an S-Corp on Form 1120s as you see fit.There is one exception to filing a two member LLC as a disregarded entity.

I like that idea -- This should work for most properties except in person auctions.

not to be discouraging, but if you don't already have experience, i think trying to build for your very first property is going to be exceptionally difficult.  30K just is not a lot to work with. 

Quote from @Andy Port: I'm currently looking to take some money out of traditional investments and begin investing directly into real estate as a passive investor on syndicated deals.The internet is pretty much copy-paste with advice on how to access real estate and defaults to saying "Just invest in a REIT - its the same" except you pay for the entire pool of existing properties (even if they have low yields in less opportunistic areas), the entire management team's multi-million dollar salary and their private jet, etc...