So a buy and hold approach would be ideal for me to capitalize on the 1031.

What I like about this bank is that once I got on the phone with someone in the Business Development department, I felt like it was an exciting brainstorm sessions in this exact section of bigger pockets. 

In this way you can control the rights to the property and approach tenants to negotiate an LOI and then execute a lease before closing on the property/If area is good generally demand is there unless developers are slamming up so much product there is an oversupply to demand.

That seems crazy but it makes sense because I was fresh off of finishing my Master's Degree in Real Estate Development around that time.

Main thing now is to develop your rehab plan.

My plan is to use that money for the down payment/ closing costs and use savings that I would have used for that to pay for rehab costs and ideally speed up the process for the down payment on my second home and turn my first one into a rental. 

In general, people looking for passive income would either develop a team (agent, contractor, property manager) and manage those people from afar or go the turnkey route (one company does all the work, finds props, rehabs, markets, manages, etc).

Both A and B are multi family apartment buildings.The properties are worth around 1.5-2m.I wish to keep A but sell B; preferably in a tax-deferred manner.A is in an area that has been rezoned and I wish to tear down and rebuild the property as the current building is old and I can get more than 4x the square footage because of the new zoning changes.Is it possible to sell B and use all of the proceeds to fund the development of A in a tax-deferred manner?

Ideally, I would want to house hack my first deal so that I can live rent free.If anyone can recommend me to some realtors I would greatly appreciate it! 

I have previously sold properties in this town, but have not found an ideal summer/beach rental and student rental until this deal presented itself.