I think I went through 3 different people that were over my account because they would quit.

Not sure if I'm allowed to post external links here, but it's in my BiggerPockets profile page.

I don't work in Nashville area but $165 per sq ft seems quite low to me.In terms of financing, I would speak with a few construction lenders and also hard money lenders.

Our long term goal is to purchase and move to a remote ranch and for me to be able to quit my job around 40 years old.

At the beginning, it may be difficult to get a more expensive property that will appreciate well and so your choice is go with the cheaper property and get cash flow until you can sell and upgrade, or wait for a really good deal which you may be waiting for quite a while and its possible that you will have spent so much time waiting that you could have purchased multiple cash flowing properties by the time you get a good appreciation deal that you can qualify for / refinance after the rehab. i know anyone can go out and get seller financing deals, HML, flip to build capital or whatever the case may be I am just saying sometimes those will be harder and could result in less deals overall. 

You are priced out of Scottsdale quite a bit, but you might find something adjacent which would provide some good opportunities. 

Typically, the investors I work with purchase properties in their personal names and then quit-claim the title into their LLC after the deed has been recorded.Markets like OKC, Memphis, and Little Rock offer some excellent, affordable growth opportunities, and I’d be happy to chat with you to explore these options further.

Quote from @Fernando Martin-Gullans: Hey y’all, I’m a retail investor with 2 SFH rentals worth a combined ~$650k looking to utilize some of my stored equity to buy more out-of-state properties, but I’m not quite sure how best to proceed given that my interest rates are incredibly low (leaning me away from refinancing) and neither property is owner-occupied (which I believe prevents me from using a HELOC).

Eventually I want to get into single family and multi family rentals.As far as effort or work on the fixers;  my brother in law is quite handy and my next door neighbor has said he would help in anything that is out of my scope of expertise. 

I have quite a bit of debt that I am working on paying off (luckily it was loaned to me by a family member with no interest and no deadline).