I would say that both my wife and I feel like it was totally worth it for us.

We have only approached 1 lender (large, online only lender), but had issues getting them to understand our total situation so the amount they would lend to us was insufficient.

I searched online for a CPA in my area, and every single one of them offered free consultations (not necessarily in person).  

Check out some of the more current solutions online.

I’ve seen a lot of stuff online about creating an LLC in Wyoming or Vermont?

Because my income starting out is expected to be around 200 K, I believe that I can rely exclusively upon conventional financing to begin with, until I exhaust the total of 10 mortgages for which I am eligible, and proceed to snowball all profits into paying off each consecutive property -- each time I pay one off, I will be eligible for another (10th) conventional loan, as well as a home equity loan secured by the recently paid off property, which I can use to buy 1-2 more properties.

We believed that the main portion of that fee would go towards the tax strategy portion where your designated ‘tax team’ would help you create a customized ‘tax strategy plan’ to minimize your taxes moving forward, while the tax preparation for a simple portfolio like ours was thought to cost no more than $2k of the total fee.

Vacasa Guestworks(partial MGMNT model) says their fee of 12% is almost covered by the fact that THEY will pay the Airbnb host fee   Also they will handle the tedious filing of monthly taxes as required by my city/state regulations  I’m not scared at all to handle the online listing and am not keen to pay their 10-12% fee.

Houston is totally open, from my understanding.

Otherwise, it'd be 25% since 160 is thus far the total capitalization.