Gain experience and then step up to larger investments.

It has taken some of us years to gain that much experience that I have learned for your tender years.

In low/no appreciation markets, you want higher cash on cash returns that will offset the lack of appreciation and so you can at least exit the market in 7-10 years if you need to without losing money or you will have been able to save some of the cash flow to make capital improvements and continue to hold the property.Also, you want to buy at a discount so that much of the equity margin you need to avoid selling costs eating up all your aggregate cash flows is captured at purchase (and perhaps some significant gain above that).

So the clever way to gain control is to get as many votes as possible.

IRS does not allow private annuity trusts anymore for capital gain deferral. 

I want to get my license to gain additional education as well as the other benefits for personal investing in residential properties.

Active investors will not invest time in teaching / mentoring / coaching you for free...you must bring something to the table because active investors have little time available and they simply can't give it away without gaining something in return.

I casually mentioned during a telephone call that it "might be" capital gains income, but I needed additional time for more investigation.  

If you turn it into a rental and then sell more than three years later, that gain will be taxed.

It sounds like this strategy means I show regular taxable income, then put it into tax deferred, which is really net 0 gain.