A commercial broker seems like maybe an option but I believe they are limited to the state in which they operate?

However I believe the original poster lives in CA which makes it unlikely that they are looking to invest in a higher tax state.

I do believe that if you show us a truly good deal, it won't be hard to get it funded, either as debt or equity financing.A "good deal" is pretty relative. 

I believe it's zoned as residential, but I don't want to evict the tenants, I want them to stay and lease back to them.

I’m a big believer that turnkey is a good way to start especially if you’ve never owned rentals.

These repairs were inline with the work that was previously done in 2008 and 2012 by a separate company.Now here is the funny part...The seller and the seller's agent both believe the home doesn't have any foundation issues because of the engineer's letter despite the visible damage and the home inspection and the pier company's investigation. 

He does manage I believe a 20-30 unit apartment complex there and knows the area quite well if that helps. 

I'm not an attorney but my understanding is yes, you can definitely do that, and I believe things like that happen every day.While I can see some possibilities for why someone would want to set things up that way, I do have the instinctual thought that it might be over complicating things.Technically the second LLC is another layer of asset protection, and maybe you have a very specific entity structure setup for taxes which would make it beneficial to do it that way (an LLC inside an LLC), but it's worth asking the question of whether these is much difference, or much more protection, than just having you (presumably a Mass. resident) be the member of the RI partnership LLC straight-out rather than having your MA LLC be the member.Also, depending on what else you have going on in your MA LLC it may be a disadvantage to have it be a member of the RI LLC from an asset protection perspective - if someone were to be able to pierce the veil of the RI LLC then everything in your MA LLC would be at risk.If you do go with the MA LLC as a member of the RI LLC, when you go to sell the property you'll have non-resident withholding - but you'd have that if you personally were the member of the RI LLC as well.You'll also need to be careful how you sign anything relating to the RI LLC - you'd have to be careful not to sign as member of the RI LLC but as member of your MA LLC, member of the RI LLC.

All my friends and family could not believe I could close a loan in 3 days.

I can’t believe how many investors are so focused on buying and not how to KEEP THEIR PROPERTIES or KEEP TRACK OF THEIR PROFIT AND LOSS.