On the contracting/public-adjuster side we do mostly exterior storm-remediation work, and each year we have to break the bad news to at least a couple of our potential clients that their insurer is only going to cover say $4k of the $24k in work because they bought the cheaper ACV policy vs.

Times Magazine put out an article a couple years ago. 

Brad Dornish (local PGH lawyer) has a couple articles written over the years about this.

There are lots of podcasts and articles on BP about investing with “no money down” but the reality of that is much much different than the articles and podcasts will make it seem.

You’ll learn along the way, not just from the books, articles, and podcasts...believe me, I’ve read and listened to it all.

Confirm that the IRA LLC provider will prepare all of the documents needed to not only form the LLC (articles of organization, SS-4 to obtain an EIN) but also the documents needed by the trust company to process the investment of IRA funds in the LLC.3.

Echo what @Casey Christensen said just to drive home the point.With so many people involved you would be ten shades of crazy to not get an LLC created and some solid articles of organization defined to figure out how you will handle all the different situations that WILL occur when one of the five you gets mad, feels like they are working harder than the rest, has covered more expenses than someone else, or one of a million different issues.Before you all even buy your first property you all need to talk about the worse case scenario and agree how you want to handle it.

As far as thinking about what makes the most sense over time, I'd recommend checking out the BP blog posts on "internal rate of return" (IRR) if you haven't already - that measure is designed specifically to factor in time, and I've found the articles on it quite helpful.Good luck!

Here is an excerpt from an article on the subject that I believe breaks this down fairly well:Gain, to the extent of the depreciation claimed that exceeds what would have been allowable under straight-line depreciation, will be recaptured as ordinary income, and, thus, taxed at rates as high as 35% in 2003 and later years (ordinary income rates), but the amount of excess depreciation subject to recapture may be less for certain low-income housingGain, to the extent of the depreciation that isn't recaptured as ordinary income, will be taxed at a rate of 25%.The balance of the gain will be taxed at a rate of 15%Example – In January 1986, you paid $1.3 million for an apartment building (not a low-income building), of which $1 million was allocated to the improvements.

See this article for more information.