@Jeff Rabinowitz made excellent points.

Our investing strategy will focus on single family homes in excellent school districts (thus far, we have 2 SFH in Keller ISD, and 1 in Northwest ISD- Byron Nelson HS), as well as multi family properties that make sense from a cash flow perspective (We've looked at 2 four plexes, and we're currently evaluating an 8 unit apartment complex).Here are some questions we have for the well informed masses at Bigger Pockets:#1 Do [you] recommend that we set up an LLC for all properties, or a series LLC, delineating each property into separate LLC's "underneath" the main LLC?

This website can be be an excellent source of information.  

The family member has stated that they will be paying the rent to us directly, and they have excellent credit, income and low debt.Any advice on whether I should consider the tenant?

You have some excellent questions, but I feel like I need some more information?

If the tenant was a long term tenant with no blemishes in the past with me and my finances are excellent then we'll sit down and talk for a while to get a good understanding of what is going on and how we can help each other IF we can at all..

Here is an excellent link I found that goes into great detail about the land trust.

IMO, the extra 400 for you will not only be appropriate for the type of tenant you wish to attract in that neighborhood, but will probably spare you some headache down the road on repairs because of their excellent reliability and warranty.Here's some links (I am not affiliated) WasherDryer

Excellent!

The best way to understand an appraisal is look at one and ask questions.You'll also see there are three approaches, the market described above, the income approach, based on income potential of the subject and the replacement approach, what it would cost to build the subject and then depreciate the improvements based on age and condition.It's an art as much of a science, don't expect to nail a value on a subject, your goal is to get close. :)