My advice to clients is to not let taxes control their life decisions. 

Beginning to wonder if we are smart to stick with our rent controlled apartment (3 bed $3750) and use our cash to buy rental properties in other areasFor SF: Our budget is limited to $1.25m with 20% down.

I had a one year lease of contract with an apartment here in Dallas. i was paying around $800 a month minus some shared water bills, pest controls..etc. 

As a Property Manager, I provide a limited service that I refer to as "Tenant Locator."

As I grew, i discovered there were certain limitations with Buildium that were difficult to overcome.

Whatever the arrangement you come up with NEVER relinquish control of the deal.If you absolutely have to keep them in the deal for the long game them why not give them each 5% ownership in the LLC who will buy and when you cash out structure in such a way that you get 100% of your $$ back first before any profit is distributed.

The settled out to the maximum of my policy limit less depreciation because I'm not fixing it.

I wanted to get familiar with the tool myself being a Realtor since I could recommend it to buyers needing to get in control of their credit.

From the extremely limited knowledge you have provided I’m not sure what value you are providing here.Typically the next step is going to be form some sort of entity to split the ownership

The problem (according to my exchange company) is even though the homes have been treated as joint with my wife and myself, the IRS auditor could potentially push that the homes I owned prior to marriage had a "transfer of ownership" when placed into the trust.My CPA suggested this outline to limit my exposure to this event.....1.