Her income now is SS of around $2400 and a basic 40hr office job that pays all of $17/hr, but she is retiring with this move.

The macroeconomics are on fire here - population growth, job growth, and companies moving and developing here.

I'm new to REI and somewhat recently moved to Houston.

If you want to quote out high efficiency boilers for six Tripple deckers for example requiring installation of separate gas, meters etc. etc. - that might be a situation where you would want to work with a contractor directly because you would have lots of different options with widely varying costs.

Life started moving fast as many probably can understand and I completely fell of track.

It's one of the hottest markets in the US right now with so much population growth, job growth, and companies moving/developing here (26B Intel headquarters being built here, 68K+ enrollment in Ohio State University, Amazon, FB, Google, Honda, Nationwide, Anduril, etc.).

Would definitely recommend finding a partner who can help walk you through this if you decide to move ahead. 

Those were separate issues from what’s being disclosed here.

Currently just waiting it out and hoping for the best to start the year so I can move on and dive into better opportunities. 

If something goes wrong we can always move away.