Everyone will feel more comfortable and it provides you with some protection.

You can deny any applicant S-8 or non S-8 for any reason, even bad breath, sloppy clothes etc, as long as you are not discriminating against any as a protected clss as defined by law, like race, religion, sex, age,etc.

With a large building your management costs are lower than a portfolio of single family homes all around town, and your more protected against vacancy, because even with 1 or 2 units empty others will still be providing some cash flow.If you want to be more active you could buy a single family home at a deep discount, rehab, and resell for a larger profit but this requires much more involvement.

Not a practice I am condoning necessarily, however I know in the past this has been strategy of investors, i.e. buying the property in their personal name, financing the property via conventional loan, and then moving to an LLC for legal protections afforded by an LLC.

J Scott- not sure if you are a Falcons fan or not, but being the most prominent member of BP I'm aware of that is from Atlanta... thought I would offer a friendly wager...Loser of Sunday's NFC Championship (even, no spread) makes a donation to BP... amount can be confidential or public... your call.

Does the LLC protect the seller from non-disclosures?

Sounds like your agent want to CYA, understandably, since any deficiency that might be seen and is not disclosed, you can hold them responsible, a final walk through protects the agent from last minute issues as it's your decission to buy.

- What type of contract should I put together to protect myself?

Educating a borrower may have little financial reward initially, but it can be rewarding in public perception which by the way can be very valuable.

How do you protect against that?