Until you have experience in partnering with others on successful projects, I highly recommend working with your partner and an attorney to structure an appropriate, legal, and viable operating agreement, be it in context of an LLC or otherwise. 

This means that you will probably need to pay registration and filing fees in at least 2 states if you don’t buy CA property as a CA resident.Any lawsuits should be limited to the assets of the LLC and not your personal assets (assuming you run the LLC appropriately and the corporate veil is not pierced, some debate as to SMLLC).

*Keep a journal of my progress, and keep my REI journey in line and prioritized appropriately with my faith, my family, and my W2 job (Not planning to quit my day job any time soon).My goals for the rest of the year:*Keep doing the daily work*Continue to invest in education (Not spending $$$$ on the national gurus.

Depends on the 1st step, need to work with the city for the appropriate permits Can you folks - please add/comment more on this.

You then get a formal list if each city in NWI and it's appropriate 4 digit area number.  

The answer will be dependent on your fact pattern, so a general forum like this may not be able to answer such a broad question.With regard to the LLC structure, note that CA does not recognize series LLCs, and CA tends to have a broad opinion of what constitutes "doing business" in the state, and therefore, what LLCs need to report with the CA Secretary of State and file appropriate tax returns. 

Contact a CPA to see what is appropriate to run through the LLC.

“Activities may be grouped if they constitute an appropriate economic unit for measuring gain or loss.”

When I analyze decisions like this, I also weigh the cap rate on the property as it relates to the cost of debt (including the tax shield), the expected appreciation, and the total net cashflow to determine the appropriate amount of leverage.

Putting things in our bios like CoC, ROI, and IRR would not help much and things like our net worth, AUM, or equity would not be appropriate.