Your roommates won't want to live through a reno.Risk adjust your offers.Look into non-FHA, low-down payment mortgage products.

Then I joined a broker where I have complete time and productivity flexibility.

Whether it will actually benefit you is another story, and that comes to the next part of your question:As for who should create or advise on the entity: creation should be left to the lawyer, although the accountant may provide insight into the structuring of entities.

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I think if I were to have 3+ properties in Connecticut (total value over $500k) I would revisit the LLC creation discussion.

There are products out there where you can put 25% down and cover 25% of the rehab budget on the back-end with the lender funding the rest.

I always recommend looking into local banks and CUs to see what kind of low-down payment products they offer.

they will also sometimes take into account depreciation (depends on the loan product) which will “artificially” make your profit look less.

We offer commercial lending as well as the full spectrum of residential products, including construction.  

If your intent was to hold for productive use and something has happened to change that intent then the 1031 would be fine.