We have enough cash to turn our first deal (including land acquisition, design/engineering, construction, etc) and ready to take the plunge and set up the LLC and get moving.

I am a full-time Civil Engineer/part time investor and I will be relocating to Boise from Bend with my girlfriend in the next 2-3 months.

I would suggest investing out of state for cashflow.I started with remote turnkey rentals in 2009-2015 which I was working my engineering gig.

If you are going to use a box store stick to Home Depot, sign-up for a pro account and take advantage of their backend office for Pro's, it is very robust and will make your life easier. 

There is a substantial amount of engineering that needs to be calculated to carry the additional load of the upper story.

It's a robust software program that was well worth the fee giving access to the same MLS data that real estate agents have at their fingertips. 

@Allen Wu it will appreciate as Texas in general is but I don't believe it will get as hot as Austin since our economy is much more robust and well diversified.

Partner Engineering is a good national firm.

I'm not sure, but I don't think it's worth the risk to pay a structural engineer come out and do an estimate. 

I work as an engineer so it’s common for companies to ask you to move to some random remote location.