The 1BR rent looks very low and it says it's turnkey (might need some cosmetic things before bringing in a new tenant).

Real Estate Agents bring more buyers to your property.

If you have significant resources you can start on your own, if not partnering with someone who brings some local knowledge can accelerate and stabilize your journey. 

In many places if you are not opening up walls in that space you don't have to bring that up to modern codes.

If they're not familiar then it's your chance to get your foot in the door by bringing 1031 education to them.It's been a few years since I checked but at one time NAR showed statistics that of all the transactions potentially qualifying for 1031 exchanges, only about 10% were actually handled that way. 

It sounds like you’re bringing ample experience to the table, which will definitely help as you start building your portfolio.

We're currently under contract with a builder for a spec home + the lot next to it (so we'll have over 2.5 acres) and have discussed having him make some small changes which will up our costs a little, but definitely bring us joy.

I have a lot of experience with STRs being a superhost for over 10 years and I believe I can bring in 200k for these houses combined. 

I know what exactly it takes to obtain a post-construction permit to bring any un permitted structure into compliance.

I pay $119 a year to bring my coverage up to about $4 million.