Plus stress 1000+ miles away that I can’t do anything about.3) I relate to what you said about REI perhaps being more of an obsession or passion more than anything else.

However, as @Chad Hale mentioned, only if you can afford it - meaning both financially and mentally (e.g. how stable are both of your jobs, how long will it take you or your husband to find a replacement job, how much you have in reserves, and whether you guys are in a position to withstand that mental stress, etc.)When you mention 8k monthly, I am assuming that's net profit?

I would say generally, buying already built is cheaper on the mind, stress and time.

I'm stressing because I wasn't anticipating this and am not excited about the prospect of paying 2k more than I was expecting when my mortgage payments kick in next month.I'll be searching the forum for answers as well, but since I am kinda desperate at the moment, I thought I would go straight to the source for advice.

So you may not NEED a lease signed for your primary residence already, especially since that's a lot of stress to find a new tenant and have a lease in place while you're under contract on another home.

We fee like a conservative approach will let us go through the growing pains of better understanding real estate investing without the worry of being over leveraged to add to the stress while we are both still employed full time in our careers and do not plan on quitting our jobs to go fully into real estate. 

Although I've stressed the importance of reserves, he is comfortable with his system.

The main reason is people get massively stressed and fear a multi-million dollar settlement and so agree to settle for a few hundred Thousand dollars. 

We have an added layer of stress compared to something turnkey in the traditional sense. 

See the stress test above.