Something else that I would consider (and I am, just trying to get the wife on board) would be to take a mortgage on your current home (or refinance) to get the cash you need, buy a duplex or triplex, and live in the multi-unit (for the HO exemption) and rent out all other units.

My biggest challenge will be to get my wife on board.

@Dave Foster is one of our on board 1031 experts, he can chime in.  

Are your partners on board with you discharging your interest?

Doing this will eventually nab you someone better at getting people on board with words and then you'll have a purpose-built team of investors on your side.

Ideally you want to get all the purported heirs on board first. 

However, my wife is not totally on board.

Try to get them to see it from your side; you are a reasonable person and would like people to have the quiet enjoyment of their home and thus have tried hard to avoid having many restrictive "house rules", but your intention in renting to them was for them to use this single family residence in a typical way.An imperfect analogy:When Hertz or Avis rents you a car, sure you have "use of it for X days" - but they are not expecting you to enter a race with it at Watkins Glen, or use it to transport 150 bags of potting soil, stacked into every space in the trunk, back seat, passenger's seat, and roof. 

Stupid book with no actionable steps or tips .. we all know the government is screwing but I didn’t expect Robert to jump on board and screw me out of 20 bucks

A team with effective systems should have: 1. an on-boarding process for new agents2. multiple lead sources; 3. lead/client follow-up systems and strategies (i.e.