Long term short term, retirement, cash flow. 

With that in mind, I think I should meet with  a real estate lawyer to set up my business before my first purchase in order to protect my retirement savings, my current house and investments. 

I see investing in real estate as the quickest path to early retirement, with my definition of early retirement being that I do not require a W2 job in order to pay for a comfortable lifestyle.

LOL I don't own anything in California,  Arkansas is where Californians come to retire.

The point is, there are options that some financial advisors don't know about because this is unconventional but it is a good way to build your retirement account using real estate and gives the freedom to use your IRA for real estate.

Assuming you and your partners have some time to go before retirement, I think #3 is the clear answer. 

A google search for non-recourse IRA lenders will bring up 2 main banks that specialize in lending to retirement accounts including Roth IRAs. 

Your day-to-day personal expenses are covered; you're free from credit card debt and other personal / consumer debts; you're saving in traditional retirement accounts, like a workplace 401k, up to your full employer match; you have a comfortable emergency fund.I'm assuming the real estate market, at this time, is "normal" (like 2014 or 2015).

so here's the story. my team and i are new (real new) to all of this. we are looking for mentors that we can learn from. when my sister first approached me with this idea i thought she was drinking again. but no. she is looking ahead and knows we must work together to be successful. three of us work full time, one inherited cash. credit for two of us is good, the other two-not so much. we heard about hard money lender and it sounds appealing because i didn't want to take out my 401k because if this deals go sour, i  will be in trouble. yes i will have my retirement (govern.civil service ). also, there are three adults crammed into a 2 bedroom 1 bath house and i want to buy a house. i am a veteran and never used my va loan benefit. question now is, should i buy a house with VA, wait a bit, use the equity to buy a rental?

There are so many moving parts in the market, that I find the need to continually reevaluate my strategy to stay ahead of the curve.If I started over in real estate today, I would do exactly what I'm doing now - Remodels in my 2 target zip codes in AZ.For you, if you are looking for enough passive income to eventually retire from your 9-5, house hacking a 4plex sounds like a reasonable next move!