You're creating inventory that multiplies NOI. 

In other words they will make sure the right boxes are checked, but they won't help or advise you in creating any of those docs.  

But as Brant said above, they are lower risk and safer than mom and pop shops.Strip center's are also a great alternative and as you said, the diversity creates less risk and more opportunity. 

I’ll probably end up looking at all of my responses and creating a comprehensive thread full of these ambiguous questions.

Also any attorneys or tax folks that can help create them, or could I Just do it online? 

  $200K leveraged to purchase $400K in property might create a tax bill of about $500-600/year. 

The next thing he told me was that I would need to create a company, lease the house to myself and put the other roommates on that lease in order to charge them rent.

@Tim Vallee I am not an attorney but if I were you I would create an LLC for ownership of the real estate that has nothing to do with who leases it.

I am currently in the process of going through Brandon Turner's The Book on Rental Property Investing: How to Create Wealth and Passive Income Through Smart Buy & Hold Real Estate Investing and it has really inspired me to take action and learn by doing. 

I have "I would guess" 50k equity in  my house probably closer to 70k here is my concerns that maybe some of you much more advanced people could help me with please. my first fear is I have my normal mortgage and IF I take the equity out basically it creates a second mortgage with a HELOC and using that to get my rental property...