I would spend 4-5 hours a day 5-6 days a week working at the house.

Couple reasons:1) More limited financing options.2) More limited use and structure for the deals.3) Finally, if you have to inject extra cash into the property for whatever reason (manage an economic downturn or natural disaster, for instance), it's going to be trickier using an SDIRA.Syndications and private lending protect you from much of the property management nuance.

Not one or two.These things always look great on paper till someone stops paying and you have to spend time and effort to evict them and then remodel the house.

@Ad Boyle  What are you looking to spend on your rentals? 

As expected there are a tons of people making money by selling bogus liability protection packages out there. 

The bank provides some protection on this, but it can be hard to get your money back if the scammer moved it overseas quickly.

Since they won't actually be signing a lease until the move in date, what would be the best possible way to write up the transfer of this fee and still be protected on all sides to be able to keep it if they decide to back out before giving the rest of the funds needed to move in (which of course I don't anticipate happening). 

Also, if I don’t have an S Corp, LLC, Trust, or anything like that, how will I be protected if somebody tries to sue me?)

["Spending kids inheritance" has become an epidemic, whether of necessity, or, purposefully].

If you spend enough time in the right circles you will start to see deal flow & learn what’s a bad deal versus good or even great!