Hi Derek,If your immediate goal to supercharge your real estate empire, having liquidity is critical to accomplish your short term or long term goal.I have a suggestion that you can look into and see if that works for you.

@Michael Simmonds, the FL markets moving inland from the mid FL regions are growing very rapidly. 

I am thinking of holding them in land trusts with LLC (or S Corp) as the beneficiary for identity and liability protection.Can the LLC be formed in out states such as Nevada, Wyoming or Delaware for less cost or it must be CA LLC because I live here?

I am currently living on +-35% of my income and putting the rest (65%) into Real Estate to build an empire as fast as possible.

Do you want to run a short term rental empire - and if so, why?

Contractors that rely on investors for most of their work either have zero people skills or hands that grow out their butts or both.As a small-ball investor calling around for contractors and trying to impress them with how incredibly serious you are with turning your handful of properties into a rental empire and thereby trying to drive their prices down...in most parts of this great country of free enterprise you are literally NEVER going to get a high-quality job done quickly in your properties.

Hi: I have been lending on flips in Virginia and have an investor I would like to work with who titles his properties in land trusts. 

Prior to working at Exeter, I worked for Inland Securities selling DSTs (Inland is a sponsor/Broker Dealer that has about 60% of the market share in the DST world).

But I'll try and answer each question individually -Is Raleigh prone to hurricanes and flooding - Yes and no, historically (at least since I've been in the area) its too far inland to receive the brunt of those types of natural disasters but it has received strong winds and excessive rain due to storms passing up the coast.

Cashflow allows you to retire, but growth rate lets you build an empire.