It's just not.Hopefully in your pro-forma when you bought you put in management numbers that are comparable for the asset type.

We can show actual financials vs. pro forma numbers albeit for a shorter time period.  

One other thought would be to form a partnership with whomever you were going to borrow those funds from.

You don't need a business license to work on your own stuff.You might want to form a LLC to do what you want to do for a lot reasons, though: favorable taxation and limitation of liability to name two.If by "buy and sell in order to generate cash flow" you mean wholesaling, understand that the materials you read or heard were designed to make you aware of wholesaling not teach it to you.If you mean you want to fix and flip (rehab), based on your construction background, that may be a good direction for you.As an experienced wholesaler, someone like you would make a good partner for me in my market. 

Should we form a corporation?

Put some money down on the investment, form a partnership with someone whos done this before and learn.If funds are low, then the best way in is to get a r/e license and then start wholesaling.

One idea that was suggested by a seasoned investor was to form a separate entity (a separate LLC) that will act as my hard money lender.

Who knows where this will take us, but our tentative goal is to scale to the point of doing this full-time.We'd love to hear from anyone in the Philadelphia, West Chester, Downingtown, etc area who feels like they have an interesting perspective to share or anyone who would like to form a relationship with a trio of young, knowledgeable and drive partners.Jason

I have decided to form a partnership with my father and together we want to begin building our portfolio.

I feel like I have the experience to form a small group to do it as a team.