If you are Solo 401k eligible, you can gain checkbook control without the need for a custodian.

Gaining some insight from a Memphian with knowledge of the industry and to hear about your personal experiences in residential real estate would be incredibly helpful for my research paper.

And I have to pay capital gain taxes, if I decide to sell since I’ve lived in more than 2 years?

@Robert SutherlandDid Preferred Trust tell you that if you used an IRA LLC to have the IRA own a business, that the gains would be subject to UBIT tax rates of up to 39.6% federal?

I refuse to build a house of cards, I will build the real estate side of my passive income portfolio one boring brick at a time.  

  ( I dont mind renting out units, I rented my home that I owned out during college to pay my tuition.)The question is, would I be better suited selling the townhome at 160,000 to pay for the new property and have cash left over for construction and renovation OR  do I take out on the townhouse, hold it and charge around $1500 a month for rent and use that income to pay off both.as far as 1031 I could do that, you mean selling and using the funds to defer all gains on taxes?

I have aspirations to be a part time real estate investor, mostly for passive income, but I am not opposed to potentially making it a full-time endeavor sometime in the future.

That is awesome you’ve managed to build passive income at such a young age through your digital marketing firm.

If not, I would ask yourself what kind of investor you want to be, (active, passive etc) and where exactly in the Midwest you would want to invest and the people out there you want to start networking with / building a team. 

I'm hoping through real estate I can create enough passive income to be able to drop down to 1 or 0 jobs.