Ideally, you do this at a bank to take out a typical investment property mortgage because they have better rates and terms than a hard money lender, which saves you money.

While LegalZoom and Bizfilings will save you money on the formation, you get no advice or guidance from them.

Cassandra, save up a down payment and buy your own house and rent it out whether it’s long term or short term.

I assume you can still take the full interest expense as a deduction to your income, so effectively you're saving money by not paying taxes (you're not collecting rent for yourself, but you are getting tax deductions for it!)

Get rid of debt, build a budget, and save.

Save every penny you've got to get your reserve built up.

Its worth the money because it saves me time, and money every single time.

Lili here, I am a first-time investor looking for a couple different things:1)  A house hack in or near the downtown area.2) Connections to real estate agents, contractors, etc. to start building a network and deciding on a strategy for my REI (wholesaling, BRRRR, etc.)I am a recent college grad (June 2018) with no debt, around ~$20k in savings, very low expenses, and I travel a good amount, so Airbnb can be an option as well.Any and all advice and recommendations are more than welcome!

They can and often do save deals that fall apart when the borrower doesn't qualify for conventional financing. 

So I started my own software development company 7 years ago, this allowed me to work from home and stock away a decent savings, but I knew I didn't want that long term, and rentals was always the end goal.