I'm getting married in July and my fiance and I have set a goal to buy our first rental property within our first year of marriage as our "Anniversary/wedding gift" to ourselves.

One of my close friends (best man at my wedding) have me $30k as a gift.

If it was the PM then I think you shouldn 't make her make a copy, but go for the changing the locks plan and have a proper notice and maybe even compensation like a gift card or thank you letter.

My grandmother is sitting on about $26,000 and knows I just began investing in real estate so she is offering to "gift" me that if I buy a SFH that also has some kind of coach house or apartment on the property (this way I would be close if she needs assistance, but not too close where we are actually living with each other).I'm having a hard time finding these types of properties in suburban Illinois.

If this agent has a good reputation, good contacts, has done a good job for you in the past, you plan to use them in the future and especially if they work with other investors who are competitors, I would think it would be a good idea to be upfront and honest with them and explain the situation.You could offer to give them the listing on the back end, or when you have the conversation with them you could say "I appreciate your efforts so I wanted to do something for you, it's not much, but hopefully it's enough to let you know I care and value your time, I really hope we can find another deal in the future together soon" and give them $500 in cash or a gift card or something... 

Last night after a long day of work and trying to buy a couple Christmas gifts for the kids (I am so behind) I got emailing/texting my property manager about an idea to leverage some staging I did at my apartments into a full on furnished corporate rental option....simultaneously I was emailing back and forth with my contractor about our rehab project....while simultaneously updating my website, tracking invoices, preparing financials for my CPA....and eventually at 12:30am I threw in the towel on getting up at 5am to get my run in (also training for my 23rd marathon).  

You can certainly simply make payments for your parents as a gift.

Bryan, if you own the property outright, just gift the deed to the LLC.

Was it a gift? 

This stands in direct opposition to a capital intensive industry such as manufacturing where employee and owner skill may be less important than the company's fixed asset profile.While S179 is a valid strategy in the attempt to drive a taxpayer's taxable income below the 'threshold amount' so the SSTB receives the un-phased out Sec 199A deduction, a SSTB may not have the investments in fixed assets necessary to drive them below the threshold during the year unless they're already very close to the threshold.Some other ideas for taxpayers owning a SSTB to lower their taxable income:Roll taxable bonds into tax-exempt bonds.Life insurance & annuities.Real estate (it's BP after all).Oil and gas investments.Charitable gifts (including CRTs).Gifts to taxpayers with lower taxable income (powerful option is to gift a percentage of the business to a trust).If a SSTB is well above the threshold, a compelling case could be made that the business should be a C Corp in the current tax environment.