This means keeping corporate records, following corporate law, having separate bank accounts, not co-mingingly funds/property, etc.

My first question is, how is the bank going to know that it's now an investment property?

Some banks won't accept it though.  

So if you're truly playing catch up on retirement, you have your precious capital in two buckets:a) equity in the house earning 4% onlyb) REI earning 10% +Then, it's the same argument on prepaying the mortgage ....you're sending a couple hundred dollars to the bank to avoid 4% interest.

I use Ally financial for my rental checking and rental reserve account, about the best interest rates you'll find for FDIC insured bank accounts.  

Sometimes a house is distressed to the point where banks won't lend so they can only work with cash buyers, throwing realtors in the mix just slows down progress on finding a qualified buyer.The market I invest in is pretty cool, so a house will sell for 60 or 70k, but it will be on the market for 6 months.  

They still have a mortgage on the property and the bank will try to protect their interest.  

Getting approved for a loan will boil down to one thing: the bank's belief in your ability to faithfully pay back the loan without any issues.

No firsthand experience, but every time I've seen this question come up the responses indicate that for a few small units LLC will not protect you better than simply adding an umbrella policy to your insurance while being more complicated and expensive to maintain.Also many snags to consider such as banks not likely to finance residential property to the name of an LLC, transferring to an LLC later can trigger a due on sale clause in your mortgage, if you mix personal funds and LLC funds to pay for something you can negate all legal protections.

A proof of funds letter would be from someone's bank or IRA account proving they have enough cash in the account to cover the offer price.