It's been a huge source of education and inspiration for me and my husband on our REI  journey.As to next steps, I would recommend finding a real estate agent that you trust, and also start talking to lenders (banks, mortgage brokers, credit unions, etc.)

My tradeworkers and other due diligence was enough  research for me.

I’ve asked twice for them to upload photos to a drive for me to look at the property as I’m an OOS investor and can’t go there and take them myself.

I work professionally as a property manager for an apartment community of 256 units so investing in real estate and eventually trading up to small Apartments is kind of a no brainier for me.

I am still in the process of interviewing broker's to find the best fit for me. 

I am forming a team/business partner to start on real estate investing, and I want to ask if we need to get some kind of formal business licence such as an LLC...or we can just do it in personal/individual level? 

I would say $1000 and up is too much for me.

I suppose I could see if he would wait for me to get financing initially. 

You need to incentivize them to mentor you or partner with you, either you work pro bono for them or bring something to the table of value.To your comment about "shady" or dishonest, I would encourage to you be as honest and forthcoming as possible, I don't know about you but I got into real estate because I wanted to do something meaningful, profitable for my family's benefit, I wanted to benefit from my level of effort rather than giving it to someone else, and most of all I wanted to make the world a better place by improving whatever it is I am working on; I want to be able to lay my head on the pillow at night knowing I did everything I could today to move forward in a positive direction and did so with integrity in order to prevent any form of regret. 

I would like to extend a helpful hand to you in any form that I can just for giving me that bit of advice.