My biggest question in getting into real estate is the cost for attorneys, contractors to give you estimates; However, I'm pretty sure contractors don't need any money up front.

My biggest issues with Rocky River and Lakewood I believe will be high taxes eating up cashflow.

Otherwise, the biggest hit was to the normally steady, but modest appreciation levels. 

We loved speaking and working with a number of Canadian investors and today just deal with them as they come to our company.As for the biggest hurdles - I would say they are legal, tax and entity structure.  

After that, the biggest thing comes down to your numbers if it's buy and hold.

This has "nightmare" written all over it.As @Erik W. pointed out, there are more than a few things here setting off red flags.With that said, regardless of whether this guy is on the up-and-up, it doesn't sound like you're actually in a position (from an education or experience) perspective to be able to help.Unless you have some previous capital raising experience and have a warmed up investor network (or you're sitting on a boatload of cash yourself), it's going to be a real uphill battle to get this thing funded.My biggest question is: Why is this guy coming to you (an admittedly new investor with no experience) to fund his deal?

"The Founder" movie is the most subtle Real Estate Investing movie but probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest, strategies for building the biggest Real Estate empire.

Speaking of LLC, it seems that the biggest issue with forming an LLC is the up-front work to do so and the separation of the financials?

This will have been our biggest investment so far (we have a quad and a couple SFR), but want to avoid any blunders.

One of my biggest concerns is  this article  I recently came across on Investopedia, which seemed to indicate that you need to use the 50% rule.