My only "plan" was to continue to buy homes once I could save enough for down payment/closing costs and lease them out hoping to cover the mortgage and still make a little monthly income ($150 - $250 minimum). 

I will bring the $6k needed to bring the loan current and cover closing costs.  

Can you post some pictures?

Do you have any pictures to share with the group?

I spoke with a mortgage officer who told me I'd need about $30k in total to cover all closing costs and have 3 months of reserves to get a 3-family.

Owning property as an LLC is usually to shield you but since most crowdfunding deals are already LLC you are already covered unless of course you're trying to add more layers of obscurity so more difficult to trace back to you for whatever reason ;).

The appraiser went to the property, took pictures, found four comparable properties and did a valuation based on all the details from those properties.

If I had an accurate picture of the sellers actual expenses, the NOI would be higher, as I know they weren't spending much on it, but they couldn't have been making much profit, so the cap rate would still be really low.  

Are you getting the picture, that DRIP is where the deals are?  

Unfortunately since my LLC owns part of the property they consider it commercial and won't cover.