Personally I would keep the cash flow but deals like that dont happen in my neck of the woods..

I have no idea how it's done in your neck of the woods, but you should ask around and check into this.

Sure if you are a physician or a general contractor there are reasons to have a complicated asset scheme to reduce exposure to a significant judgment in a personal injury case.   

We have a significant housing crisis here, and it adds insult to injury with so many empty properties that were bought as investments. 

There's a pretty popular real estate investors club in your neck of the woods, you should definitely attend one of the meetings to connect with some successful investors.

In our neck of the woods, that is likely illegally be used as a duplex and is actually a single family.

My plan is to leverage all my properties to the neck for the first 5 years. 

In my neck of the woods, we are somewhere in between.  

Any others experiencing this dilemma in your neck of the woods?

If the property has a violation of the local code say your hand rail is too low or too short then the violation of the code if it is tied to the injury, falling down the stairs, then you might be personally liable, as it is your duty to provide a safe property.