The barrier to entry (education, experience, money, connections) do seem to be quite a bit higher to get all of those above mentioned benefits in comparison to opening a brokerage account and purchasing stocks.No essay needed.

We just had an conference call on this and a wrote a forum post yesterday about this exact circumstance and loan product..check in with @Joseph Chiofalo

I would just check with your lender to verify that the property will be eligible for refinancing after the construction loan.

I am also needing to get my loan team dialed in...So, do you also have recommendations on national banks (obviously I'll check banks local to the deals I find), but would like to start with national banks who specialize in this space.

You might check to see if you are grandfathered.

One important tip for you is that if you decide to hire a property manager, make sure to check if they are licensed.

This means that you will probably need to pay registration and filing fees in at least 2 states if you don’t buy CA property as a CA resident.Be sure to tell your accountant that you may now need to file non-resident income tax returns in each state where you own property as well.

Make sure to account for it while running your numbers.Keep the strategy long term in expensive market.

Clear roles - you call the shots, your friends write the checks (and hopefully cash some too!)

Not really, as long as you are up front with a lender, most would just require you to show them the establishment of the LLC/accounts and then could proceed with that.