What would be the best for us to balance appreciation / cash flow when offering on properties based on a hypothetical number.

All I do is freddie/Fannie small balance loans and I would say over 85% of them are in the 40-55% expense ratio range.

That debt is tied to you personally, thus impacts your consumer credit score and can make it more difficult to get additional mortgages in future. 

To be clear I'm not interested in real estate because I think it will be easy I'm well aware that it's very difficult.

I think if you looked at your balance sheet you've already more than dipped your toes :)  You may not have generated massive cash flow but depending on when you bought - the Keys, Brickell, Miami and any land out west suitable for a summer home have appreciated massively and probably shifted your asset/liability balance more than 99% of cash flow investors working at real estate.So another option feeds right into this without having to go with a management weighted DST or syndication. 

Probably difficult to do that from a distance.Keep looking at the good old US of A!

You will need to balance the legal protection benefits of an LLC (an attorney's question) against the cost, because CA will make you pay $800/yr just for having the LLC. 

@Justin Lee I’m working on trying to get a HELOC on one of my properties now and it’s been difficult.

@Suny CapezzutoCurrently I am renovating my home, once completed I should have around 55k$ + of equity... 3rd child on the way so it would make for a difficult time to house hack.

So stop seeing "things" as how difficult it is to reach, and see it as an opportunity to conquer and dominate.Please understand this one thing.