Basically, all the things you mentioned such as how your paid, equity splits, job description, contribution, etc.Once you have a solid foundation, take it to an attorney who can build off that and cover things you may not have thought about.

I have money in 3 buckets1) Roth IRA2) Traditional IRA3) Roth 401kNot sure which buckets your money is in, but the roth IRA you can withdraw all your contributions without penalty.

In addition, if you are self-employed with no full-time employees you may wish to consider opening a Solo 401k instead of a self-directed IRA as it has several advantages over an IRA LLC such as much higher contribution limits, direct checkbook control (i.e. no need to have the account at a specialty trust company), ability to take a 401k loan, exclusion from unrelated debt finance income tax with respect to investment in real estate acquired with non-recourse financing, etc.In addition, please note if you purchase debt-financed real estate with your IRA, unrelated debt finance income tax should apply to the income attributable to debt-financed real estate held by your IRA.

This means the building needs to be profitable (using only 75% of rents) without using your contributions.

@Alan DuroSo the real question is can you contribute a personal capital loss to a partnership, c Corp, trust, etc...Unfortunately the answer is no.However, among closely held entities, I have seen partnerships stuff gains into non taxable partners or entities with loss carry forwards such as your friend has.

I know that it is important for liability purposes to file for an LLC potentially before we even buy our first property, and I think it can help to establish in writing how we'll split profits, but I a) know that the percentage in which we will be contributing funds will change overtime and b) am a bit apprehensive about the initial costs and if it would cost us any additional amount to have this LLC filed without immediately adding properties.

What i can contribute to someone now is my time, and my work ethic.   

I decided to build a trustworthy branded business as we've always provided quality finished products, contributing to the neighborhoods we serve.We are now buying all of our houses off market and direct from sellers through various forms of (expensive) advertising (Google AdWords, radio spots) and are starting to get direct referrals from previous happy home sellers.Now that we are currently managing 7 rehabs we've faced a ton of challenges.

That being said I have my 401k which I contribute to monthly that will provide a sufficient retirement decades from now.

However, they are almost certainly contributing to your “poor credit” if they’re carrying a balance because they’re still going to factor into your overall credit utilization.