The interest you earn is treated as ordinary income so not as tax advantageous as the passive rental income and depreciation writedown from owning real estate.

We did both.Parks are not treated like SFRs.All commercial deals need to be evaluated as if you where selling the deal, not buying it.  

I personally close out that section out and just treat it as business.  

Seeing how most tenants treat things, outside of stained concrete, not sure you are going to find anything that you are going to be happy to look at after 5 years or so of wear and tear.  

It sounds like you have a great situation with your tenants and they have treated it well.

It was my understanding that properties with less than 5-units are treated as residential, and therefore income based lending.

If I had a local broker here in the Nashville area that would help verify comps and just over all projections of where neighborhoods are headed then I would treat them as an amazing asset and work with them anyway possible.

Seems to me, the advice should be "Yes this a business and should be treated as such.

Also, how each state treats a single member vs multi member LLC could often have drastic implications on the investor's  liability and asset protection goals.

Liability is not really an issue if you properly vet your tenants and then treat them well, and any way a $1m umbrella policy is very inexpensive when added to your homeowners policy.Our first property was an up/down duplex, which we lived in for 6 years as the tenant paid the mortgage and the property appreciated.