I never recommend selling a house unless you are selling it to invest the money in something that provides a greater return, or you are experiencing financial difficulty and can't get out of it through other means (e.g. a part-time job).Have you considered living in the 5bed house and renting out a couple of the spare rooms?

PM’s I’m not defending the unlicensed plumber but that’s how so many of those companies make margin, if you want someone licensed the easiest way is to self manage a property (I have a duplex 1.5 away I self manage, have a great plumber, he’s literally replacing a hot water heater tomorrow while I’m 1.5 hours away) as far as the future, it’s really important to try to take the emotion out which I know can be difficult, is this a property that has had issues but can be corrected and become a profitable and relatively easy property to manage.

You would need to bring 10-15% cash down for your skin-in-the game.  

You're taking some of the risk or have skin in the game by handling 50% of the expenses.4.

I even created my first LLC to start the fix and flip business, funding it with enough skin in the game, elsewhere hoping to use OPM rather than my own capital to fund these projects as it has been difficult finding a lender who is comfortable with loaning to me solely without an LLC.My goal has always been to match my W2 income and eventually double it and more so I can work as a hobby rather than relying on it to live.

I need a site plan and rendering to submit for the permit as well and am having difficulty locating the right person. 

I would beg to differ in that the 50% rule isn't solid but there is more than one way to skin a cat.  

You having no skin in the game would make them additionally wary.

Lots of different ways to skin it.Most of the time when we look to buy real estate we are trying to come out of pocket as little as possible....so then we can go buy MORE real estate! 

Each to their own mate,Personally, I would never touch new construction.But there many ways to skin a cat, right?