This is the best place for all things real estate related.

Make sure to run all business-related transactions to this account and avoid commingling.

so you're not going to get that promised 'cash flow' until year 5 or 7 or 10 or 15 - especially if you think about paying yourself back for that 20-25% down payment.here's a post that goes into these issues in tons of detail.https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/48/topics/1159104-overl...i hope this helps and gives you some things to think about. 

But in my decades of landlording I've never had a liability issue. 

That is partly a legal issue but I think where you run into trouble is with your broker.

Hey Sean, totally can relate with you being from an expensive real estate market - I moved to Columbus a few years ago (from Portland, Oregon which was super expensive) to become a full time real estate investor, and ever since, I've completed quite a lot of BRRRRs, flips, and own a successful rental portfolio here in Columbus Ohio.

I worked for a property management company that had a location up in Big Bear and the #1 issue all of the landlords had up there was finding good contractors who will complete work on time and in budget.

If you need the interest only payment period to get a property stabilized, that is pretty typical in bridge loans for larger multifamily properties, but that is going into the property with the expectation you are going to be doing some substantial work to increase the cash flows accordingly, versus buying a property that has been relatively well taken care of and good property management in place.

JD Martin, if I had a dollar for every time I was asked "any relation", I would have so many properties I wouldn't know what to do with them all. 

They looked at about 50 properties and each one had an issue.