The first step is talking to a lender and getting pre-qualified.

Have a hard money lender ready in case you need them.

@Samuel Coronado - cash flow on new builds here right now is fairly non-existant without putting more than 20% down. 

Having worked with 1,000's of investors to Broker the properties I sell in my local market, and having worked with dozens of Property Managers, Turnkey Providers, Agents, Property Management Software Companies, Lenders, Inspectors and various other investment real estate vendors to market their products and services on my show, the one thing that stood out to be was the CEO Zach's obsession with the biz.In real estate we've get a lot turnover, a lot of flameout.

However, he is very risk-averse, even more so than myself and the general public.

City Hall want to keep small town small, does nothing to promote town Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

In non-community property states a husband/wife LLC is supposed to be treated as a partnership  And transferring from a revocable trust (reported on your 1031) to a partnership LLC (that files it's own tax return) is changing the tax payer. 

and the property had a private dwelling value appraisal much higher than the public property appraiser claims. 

Quote from @Paige Seeley: @Jay Hurst even with 20% down, what non conventional options are you talking about? 

We did that for about 3 years until Jeff informed me he'd fallen behind on property taxes, and all of his lenders called the loans due.