You may be talking to a loan officer who is treating you like you are buying your personal residence.Talk with a mortgage broker that deals with investors and avoid banks. 

But one more time: it may be a wrong way to treat your project.

Typically once found and treated an annual inspection can be done and re-treatments can be done early into their repopulation if it happens.However. . . often the damage lies under the surface and is difficult to assess. 

So,  in short, I treat real estate books as a collection of resource materials that I would put back on my shelf for later reference.

I believe a former owner is treated like a holder over tenant.You could also give a quick call the housing court that would cover the property to see what they say.

I wan't to treat this like a business from the very start. 

Obviously there are downfalls to both sides, but the simplest reason I can give to go LLC is that you will be running a business, and you should treat it that way, especially if this isn't a one off. 

Why treat it differently?  

I’ve seen these treated as both part of and additional to “maintenance” in different places.

The transfer the ownership of the company which holds the real property is treated differently from the transfer of real property.Of course, consult a professional.