(My next visit being Jan 22 - Feb 4)My full time job... 

Your job will be to find an investor-friendly brokerage willing to teach.

Oregon coast crashed hard in the GFC   the Covid has it coming back FINALLY  but bottom line is very little industry and jobs.. since logging and fishing has curtailed .. so its retirement and tourism. 

I'm not sure if we can like to articles on our own websites here, so to be safe I'll just suggest the IRS web page, which does do a pretty good job of explaining the basics: https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc510The main thing to know if you're going to claim business miles is that you do need to keep a log of every business trip. 

The job market is tight here in Lake County right now.

The problem many of us run into is being in New England, many of the markets are high cost, high appreciation markets that we either can't get pre qualified for, or even after moving out will struggle to cash flow.Another big constraint is that many of us have W-2 jobs in engineering that require some days in the office, and these types of higher paying jobs are primarily in major cities (most of us are in the Boston area).Lastly, a lot of us have significant others that may be less interested in living somewhere "random" because it makes sense as an investment.

Our job is to rapidly identify, qualify and analyze all listings, tour the propsect as soon as possible and write workable and winnable offers.

They have have done a great job outlining all the possible things that can go wrong and what  can go right.  

For starter, I am married to my 9-5 job and looking for a way out.

You did an excellent job summarizing your experience.