I have been extremely blessed with the crazy appreciation over the last few years from covid, the town cleaning up my street, and a lot of local development. 

We are extremely versed and conservative on the value of the property, we know the seller and acquiring the property on a deal.

I am going to get started in Rochester NY so anything specific to this area would be extremely helpful.Thank you!

The market was extremely hot and interest rates were still barely above 3%, so a house sitting on the market for more than 2 weeks was rare. 

I used my generic sounding  s-corp, executed a note and recorded a mortgage/deed of trust.The primary reason was to appear encumbered, secondary to get sweet rate/term refi with quiet cash out if needed.

I know this sounds extreme, but the main reason I got into real estate was so that I did not have to work jobs I hated anymore, and could travel instead or spend my time working on things I actually want to. 

The only reason I can think that you'd want to do that is if you were EXTREMELY confident in your ability to:1.

I have been listening to many tax-related BP podcasts, and I am aware that tax planning is extremely important for RE investors - but I am not sure if it's worth spending that much when we are just starting out.

FHA have sustainability requirements for triplex and quad which makes it extremely unlikely you can use this financing.  

It can be an extremely rewarding career from many perspectives.