This will be a "what you need to read" post, not a "what you want to read" post.There are exceptions, of course, but for the last couple years, people trying to "house hack" a 2-4 unit property in Oakland with <25% down have mostly been getting beat out by established REI putting 25% down.

Or are you writing a blog to establish yourself as an authority in a certain niche or market?

Normally I wouldn’t worry about something so trivial, but I’m still in my first year (3 properties) and establishing my systems, so when an issue comes up I take it as an opportunity to build it into my systems, and want to make sure I’m always doing so ethically and responsibly.

It sounds like you have your goals well established. 

One company owns everything and does nothing (this is your SLLC a/k/a “asset holding company”) and a completely separate company handles all of your operations (this is a traditional LLC a/k/a “operating company”) For the operating company which serves as your face to the world and through which you do all your business, you establish a Traditional LLC to carry out the operations of your investments.

You can establish an operating agreement that outlines the role of each partner, provides liability protection and can also cover a variety of situations that might arise (should one partner pass away, etc.) 

You just have to establish that you have the legal right to rent it.

The need to establish capital makes this hometown live-in flip a great option.

If you only want to establish a couple LLCs, then people will often come up with creative and fun names - or boring ones, depending on the person.

After that many people lean toward an LLC, since they provide such a strong form of liability protection between the investment and the partners' personal assets AND it also allows your to establish an operating agreement - a set of specified instructions for different circumstances that may happen.