I am excited to get involved and meet all you awesome people! 

Two flats are essentially just houses.... they trade like houses and there is a lot of emotion involved.

I would get an attorney or title company involved to create your loan documents to ensure they comply with the law and cover all the aspects you need.Another method that is likely your best bet to take on investors is to create a joint venture (JV).

These leads were very unresponsive and may pan out over a longer period of time but the time involved is just not worth the effort.  

I’m weighing two options for our housing situation and would greatly appreciate your advice, given the complexities involved.1.Renovate and Buy Another Property•Invest to renovate our current home adding a bedroom to the house given our family outgrew the house.

Lastly more to my point - I thought you worked for a MF syndication in the past that I was not sure but wanted to mention and that you are not just someone coming off the street having never been involved in a deal (unlike a lot of others).  

I involved insurance, remediation, restoration and they all did their part and finished in 2 weeks.

Anything that involves a load bearing wall will generally need an architect IME, but it can also be required (maybe indirectly) through the jurisdiction's building code/enforcement.Got it, thank you for lending your expertise!

I recommend reviewing your local laws to understand the requirements involved.

my condolences on your recent lost.there are a few ways you can do this, as mentioned above you can take a heloc on your primary residence which will give you a second mortgage, first mortgage payment wont be impacted. you can do cash out refinance which will give you one mortgage and payment. it will pay the old mortgage and give you money in your pocket to pay for the rehab.or you can do a renovation refinance which is similar to cash out refinance but we would contractor involved  as part of the refinancing and they are paid through the loan