I have to say all the hassle was worth it because i didn't lose money on the first deal!

An LLC may offer additional liability protection, but it's easy to lose the protection if you're not careful with your business.  

It sounds like you are acquiring a bunch of properties right now and if that's the case there's no point as you're not paying your agent anyways and aren't losing out on any money.

Must be devastating to lose all the savings from many years of hard work.

I wound up losing it all!

I've put in my leases that any wiring changes must be submitted with a drawn plan or they'll lose security.

And for the reminder of the flexibility real estate offers to parents, that's such a huge thing for me to keep in mind...it'd be so much harder if I was still working for the man, lol, and I'd lose all this precious time with my baby boy.I'm also glad you mentioned finding social groups, because I've been meaning to do that anyway for a different reason, and I totally forgot!  

Just hoping to start with my first investment property in that area(or somewhere around there) and don't want to lose my shirt on my first deal.  

Most of all, you can't force a non-deal to be a deal... you make (or lose) most/all of your money when you buy! 

Those are the two major players when trying to make an apples to apples comparison of debt vs no debt.A better question for what you are looking for would be: will an all cash purchase or a leveraged purchase yield a larger return?