Hi, I am based in MA but about to buy rental property in NY.

The best way to protect yourself investing in NYC is to buy higher quality assets and require exceptional credit credentials from your applicants to obtain approval to rent.

Buying an existing place that needs upgrading might be more sensible but it will still cost a lot of dough.Plus the purchase of the catamaran.

And here is a video that helps understand how to get the 100 hours for material participation.Another way is to buy a property in a company name and utilize section 469 grouping activities.

My mom sold her house and downsized and rather than buy a rental, she put the money in a savings account.

I decided to buy the house in my name to qualify for a homestead exemption.

First property if you have these concerns buy small and low

So, if you wanted to get your replacement property into an LLC you would have to purchase as tenants in common and then contribute the property into a new multi member LLC and changing the tax payer but changing it after the 1031 is complete.The easiest course would be to sell as tic, do the 1031, buy the new property. 

The fact that you can buy into leads does not make you better with investors so that means it may or may not be worth it.

Just realize that if you buy real estate with a heloc, be careful as now you are basically leveraging existing assets for new assets and many times people get over levered and in trouble in those scenarios.