Its best to discuss your scenario further with a investor friendly lender so they can best advise and help you plan to build your investment portfolio because if you make one bad investment that can derail your progress.

I called last week and the guy wasn't much help.

Hey @Brandon Schaar, reach out to @Darren Danowitz to help you get on the right track with assisting you and your wife to purchase your first house.

I hope this is helpful to you, all the best!

You can also use a Fannie Mae loan to help do the renovations through the loan process up front. 

Since each taxing municipality has different mill rates (property tax rates) a 1031 exchange into a state or municipality within a state where the mill rate is lower can help. 

Any personal experiences with providers would be helpful.3.

@Peter Christensen we do a few things that might help you:1) Lookup the owner of the rental property in public records.2) We have a Whitepages account that allows us to look up either names to get numbers, or reverse look up a number to get a name.3) Bank statements are also great!

So having a plan, ability to do some things yourself, and building a team prior to starting is helpful in reducing some of that risk.

I think you're gonna have to bring in the help of an attorney that specializes in this stuff.