It is one of the most common structuring questions, and the honest answer is that it depends on facts only your advisors can weigh. Holding through an entity, a US LLC, a foreign corporation, or a combination, can address liability separation, privacy, and estate exposure, and each structure carries its own US tax treatment, filing obligations, and costs.
The estate dimension deserves particular attention: US estate tax rules treat property owned directly by nonresidents differently than property held through certain structures, and getting this wrong is expensive precisely when it matters most. Income tax treatment of rental income and of an eventual sale also shifts with the structure.
The right sequence is to engage a cross-border tax advisor and attorney before going under contract, because restructuring after closing costs money in transfer taxes and fees. Rangely raises the question early with every international client, coordinates timelines with your advisors, and stays firmly in her lane: she runs the real estate, they run the structure.