She's great, and they offer great rates.

I am also in search of a hard money lender who can assist me in making a cash offer and later refinancing it into a traditional loan.

Even though rates are beginning to come down, lenders remain conservative and are offering lower leverage on rental assets.

 My concerns and focus in this phase of my life is long-term financial planning - retirement etc (46).I dont have any retirement savings except my job offers a State Pension and I own 2 single family houses.

I know apartments.com used to offer that feature of reporting to credit agencies for free but it's no longer available as a feature. 

For me to get them to offer interior design pallet with all items to buy in every room of my 1800 sq foot cabin along with color pallete, everything down to light fixtures was going to cost me around 5K for their services.

Both NJ & NY have higher taxes, higher sale prices, and higher number of offers per listing. 

I'd be happy to offer advice.

Before putting together an LLC I would study the following:- Understand what level of protection it actually offers you and understand how to operate the LLC so that you never jeopardize the "corporate vail." - Understand risk mitigation through insurances - Understand how building a rental portfolio under an LLC changes the debt options you use when closing deals. 

Could also hire a good STR company that can market the property better, price strategically, and offer better guest experience since the owner emotions are moved, which in turn ups the revenue.