About 5 years ago, every time I'd go home for holidays or whatever Id noticed a gentrification in a town neighboring my hometown and decided to go for it, a fairly complicated one for a newbie with a hard money loan, two duplexes, one condemned needing structural engineers, to make it simpler I demolished it (dealt with asbestos siding) and refinanced with local credit union.

@Christopher CurrallIf this is LA City the engineers, if paying attention, will ask for a 12" depth.

He's a General Contractor and Civil Engineer.

I've used them for 2 states VA and MA and they also are the cheapest and have great algorithms to target your weaknesses. 

If you hear a terminology you don't understand, try to look it up yourself, or if they're going over figures, see if you can reverse engineer & arrive at those numbers doing your own calculations. 

I'm not at all experienced in structural engineering.

We need recommendations on the best way to tackle this project, do we need to hire a structural engineer or will an architect suffice (if needed typical price? 

Is there a better way than typical real estate search engine?

The #s: Mortgage on the home, escrow - $800 total - ($177 of that goes toward principal if relevant)                            Estimated rent - $1200             Current fixed interest rate on the 30year note - 4.625%            Home has $12k in principal paid, with a $26k down payment + added equity totaling approx $63k before closing costs, so I assume I would pocket around $54k after selling (fsbo #s) A structural engineer inspected & recommended that if I want to sell the home, I should have 13 piers replaced costing $7200 but long story short I think it's more of a precaution & would not have this done if keeping as rental.

Our whole team have also been to AppFolio Customer Conference in Santa Barbara in the last two years to have more in depth learning with their engineering team!