In the mist of trying to get out as quickly as possible before our hard money payments hit (they gave us 3 mo. period to get the house handled before payments would kick in) no discussion concerning LLC occurred with this lender.I've now got an LLC established with my wife and I as members and have found out that they won't allow us to move the loan to be under the LLC.

As you can see, our goal in establishing this method was to try to separate as much as we could our personal means of communication from our rental business.

Anyway, here goes…I am trying to establish my nonworking wife as a “real estate professional.”

Your tax advisor whether an EA or a CPA can calculate this for you and recommend how to maximize it.  

Employee relationship needs to be established. 

Institutional accounts are slow to setup, and none of the exchanges really provide a means to contact someone to check on the status of an application or obtain help.You have to establish an institutional exchange account that ties back to the Solo 401(k) in some fashion, either directly in the 401k trust or via a LLC that is wholly owned by the 401(k). 

However, she has no established credit, so the loan will go under our names only.

Mike, appreciate the info, a couple of questions:You suggest starting in SFH to get better tenants and to stay away from the bad ones living in multis, that's understandable but what is the difference between dealing with the bad tenants of multis/apartments in the beginning of an investor's career or once he's a bit established?

It seems to work very well but again, a level of trust needs to be established.

After this thread I managed to speak face to face with some seasoned financial advisors.