It showed the upward trajectory in Ogden to be among the most deviated in the country from historic market data.At the time, I thought this to be an interesting and coincidental statistic because Ogden's upward prices were a function of the entire Utah trend and the laws of conformity. 

You'll be fighting an uphill battle if you don't conform with these codes. 

It's been pretty tough to find anything that cash flows lately, so we're going to move ahead despite this after being told it's not an uncommon situation in this particular submarket.We'd like to try and up zone so that it's no longer non-conforming.

I am not saying you shouldn't seek labor only contractors, If you do go that route you will save money but be prepared for some headache & micromanagement.In general a competent GC will require control of all aspects of the project as to insure conformance to Quality, Timeline & Budget.

Its a good question and lots of resources here on BP to learn - generally going the "conventional" route with mortgage loans from private lenders that conform to GSE (Fannie Mae) standards is great for your first few, then many switch over to "DSCR Loans" when they start scaling towards property number 3,4,5 etcI recommend talking to Jeff Welgan at Bluprint home loans to talk to to learn about the conventional options https://bluprinthomeloans.com/jeff/Also feel free to check out these resources on "DSCR Loans" which don't use DTI at all and are really good for scaling:BP-Published DSCR Guide!

If you have a way to obtain more parking it may be a helpful step in conforming to their rules.

The garden unit is non-conforming but fully equipped with 3 bedrooms, a living room, and a full bathroom.

I charged 15% And I spent the money to run a fly buy program with CA investors and sold them all in one weekend at a big event that cost me 50k to put on up front :) so there is more to selling real estate than conformity to norms.  

Lenders will require 5% down and you will need to meet the conforming loan limits (not high balance unfortunately).

In theory, if they have it recorded as 2 but it is built as 3, they could say it is an illegal bedroom, and inspection is required to get it conforming.