I will continue to study up and hopefully be in a position soon to purchase the right investment. 

I'll continue to look but now for non auction homes.

A LLC will not provide any better protection at your point in investing and will only increase your operating costs and make it more difficult to get financing going forward.Insurance is the real protection, LLC is more for psychological protection.

We are in search of an equipment operator, mostly for grading and hauling dirt, some auger footings or foundation work.

I appreciate the responses and they are very helpful, want to navigate in forum better before I continue

One partner has proposed the following and I want to make sure that from legal and tax perspectives it all makes sense and is legit.. 1.Form an LLC where three partners would each have 1/3rd interest.2.Transfer the property (title) to the LLC via quit claim deed for some price/consideration3.He would buy our shares/interest in LLC so he ends up with 100% ownership4.Mortgage would continue in my name and I would remain the Garantor (he will pay me some fee each year to keep it in my name).

The CE Shop is also good, plus they offer a lot of continuing ed courses.

But, if that is supplementing regular income sources then that can be used to continue to expand the portfolio.That would be the short term goal.

It might not even go down at all depending on how the market treats it, but continue the purchase renegotiate now while you can and take the chances.

@Madeline jI would continue to maximize your 403b contributions but keep in-mind that you generally won't be able to transfer those funds to an IRA until you either stop working for that employer or reach age 59 1/2.