I would plan for having to put 20%+ down for most deals. 

Rental arbitrage isn’t common in my area ( high point North Carolina) but I was planning on starting in another state.

.✅ Hands-On Experience – If you plan to grow your real estate portfolio, managing tenants yourself can teach you valuable lessons about leases, maintenance, and local rental laws.✅ More Control – You’ll personally handle tenant screening, rent collection, and property upkeep, ensuring everything is done to your standards.✅ Stronger Tenant Relationships – Being involved directly allows you to build rapport with your tenants, which can lead to better communication and longer leases.Cons of Self-Managing❌ Time-Consuming – Dealing with maintenance requests, late-night emergencies, and tenant disputes can quickly become a second job.❌ Legal Risks – Chicago has strict landlord-tenant laws.

A good real estate accountant can save them thousands of dollars by leveraging entity selection and formation, tax deductions, cost segregations, bonus depreciation and tax planning.I recommend that they find a tax accountant who specializes in real estate taxation, business taxation, financial planning and tax planning.I would also recommend that they look for a accountant willing to work with them throughout the year, who can help them strategize and who is responsive when they want to know the consequences of the financial decisions they are making throughout the year.Good luck.

I have a great planning tool that could help you with planning your acquisition strategy for the next 10 years you might find helpful.  

I'm in the market for entity config and tax planning/prep.

You Can Only Have 35 Non-Accredited InvestorsRule 506(b) allows an unlimited number of accredited investors but restricts you to only 35 non-accredited investors.However, there’s a catch:Non-accredited investors must be financially sophisticated.They must have enough experience to evaluate the investment risks.From the SEC:“Securities may not be sold to more than 35 non-accredited investors… [who] must meet the legal standard of having sufficient knowledge and experience in financial and business matters to be capable of evaluating the merits and risks of the prospective investment.”If you’re planning to include non-accredited investors, make sure they qualify—or you could be violating SEC rules.3.

Ramping up this year but my wife and I ultimately plan to move to Georgia in 2027 (we already have a realtor for the curious). 

This is something I try to live by and teach my kids if I can - "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

There's other items such as this where it may be helpful to talk to a CPA/EA for a little tax planning, especially since you'll likely get caught up in the passive activity loss limitations if taking bonus on a single rental property as I often see.It's also useful to mention that even if you do the cost seg study (I'm assuming you're doing one to be talking about this), you'll still benefit from accelerated depreciation in the form of shorter useful lives on the assets where you received bonus from.