It is not your responsibility to return deposits separately unless spelled out in the lease to do so

I would do 2 separate agreements.  1 for the purchase and repairs of the property. 

A lawyer provided us with advice to create a separate LLC for each property.Question to the Bigger Pockets community:  Is that what most folks are doing? 

You can take Title into one LLC, or use separate. 

A lawyer provided us with advice to create a separate LLC for each property.Question to the Bigger Pockets community: Is that what most folks are doing?

Thanks all,It is very helpful to know which costs I have to separate out when I file taxes.

yes, its declining in all educated areas. but housing costs will continue to go up. in our Multifamily rentals, we will be upgrading everyone's living standards to assure we have upper-income earners as tenants, will be adding separate Electic Vehicles charging and 1st $100 of electricity for free included in the rent with Solar panels offsetting the cost producing the electric we sell to tenants. also adding Smart building ready FOG network for security and looking at new Smart Toilets the five-star hotels have been installing.

Can I get a loan just for them both as one  or do I need to prepared them as separate?  

Add it to the monthly rent and "forget about it", as we Italians are famous for saying.You will never recover the cost to install separate water meters, a new water main to the building and the cost to install new water piping in the building to divide the piping to two systems.

Let's dissect it by separating the real property (land) and personal property (homes): Assuming the lot rent in the area is $250 per month, then the numbers would probably be:7 x $250 x 12 x .5 = NOI $10,500.