I think I would put her name on your primary lease. 

Yes the 30k was my primary seed money for a new place.

We've been looking out of state a lot as the market here in Utah is crazy but haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet.I recently heard of someone who has been extremely successful in their real estate career who built a new primary residence every 2 years which came with certain tax benefits and profit in an appreciating market.So I thought maybe instead of finding a rental property to buy we could build a new primary residence and rent out our current home which has appreciated about 60% in the 5 years we've owned it.

Thanks everyone I currently own a primary residence and do have about 10k I can invest to get started.

I have a question in regards to the financing portion and what others may have done:I have a HELOC on my primary residence which I could easily use to fund my downpayment. 

Sine we own our primary residence one of the banks we contacted suggested we use a home equity installment loan (HEIL) saying that it would allow us to make what amounts to a cash offer on the property and secure the loan with a similar term and interest rate to a conventional loan and the added benefits of no closing costs.  

Given that drill weekends are only one weekend a month I assume you can count this as an other than primary employment business travel, but I'm unsure. 

Thanks Matthew, That is something I will try I just heard back from one bank that said their policy is to only loan on one rental and my primary residence.

What if that would be a primary residence? 

I am contemplating doing a cash out refi on of my rentals to do a remodel on my primary residence.