Seek advice from seasoned investors, mentors, and real estate experts without hesitation.

It sounds like your finances are tight as a young professional with a family, I'd advice work on increasing your W2 income, with more education or training.

The limited liability protection you are seeking is a legal matter, so no other profession that you interact with has a fiduciary responsibiliyt to care. 

I'm wondering if some existing owners are getting out of short-term rentals because of the numbers, which would further reduce supply and, the thinking goes, increase revPAR/occupancy.) 

(I could probably get this increased but I'd have to get primary residence Sq ft re-evaluated since the basement is finished and heated but of course thay would increase my property taxes.)Thinking about refinancing primary residence and taking money out to do the additional building. 

Look for properties that require minor renovations or improvements to increase rental income and property value.

so most people will have to be as leveraged as possible to scale (at the beginning). as in, keep your LTV high and focus on buying 'as much' ($$) RE as possible. this is if you're doing a pretty run of the mill REI strategy like buy and hold. i came across an interesting guideline once: if you could sell today and net 7x+ your annual true net cashflow, you should cash-out/refi, or sell/1031. think of it this way: if your portfolio in a year is worth 1m market value, and you owe 600k, and have a lender that will do a portfolio loan at 80% ltv, you could cashout refi and get 200k to play with (minus closing costs). when you compare the now-lower cashflow from the existing portfolio (higher LTV & maybe different rate), to what you can do with 200k cash, THAT'S where it gets fun. maybe you lose 1k/mo in cashflow on the original portfolio (literally just made up a number, idk), but you can gain 2500/mo in cashflow with that 200k.. then doing the cashout/refi earned you a net increase in your monthly profit of 1500/mo, plus you're getting debt paydown and appreciation on "more" real estate, probably getting bigger tax benefits, etc.

Did you increase the property tax basis to the new acquisition value?

A cost segregation study can be done on a SFH which would increase your depreciation expense.The bigger question is would you benefit from the added depreciation.

Factor in at least 40-50% of rents going to operating expenses.Financing: 30-year mortgages will have lower monthly payments than 15-year loans, increasing cash flow.