We hired a structural engineer to take a look at it and draw up plans.

Align them with solid vendors such as property management, if they are wise enough to hire one.Also, owning your own portfolio of properties helps show that you have experience. 

I would make learning how to screen tenants your top priority followed closely by learning your local laws and hiring a good attorney to provide you with leases and all the other documentation you need. 

I have hired gurus, coaches, programs, and spent a boat load of money. 

@Brian DanoYou have to be careful when visiting places like H&R Block, Liberty, etc as they are run as a 'franchise' and normally owned by a CPA or EA who hire those with little experience to help prepare tax returns.You can check out the craigslist hiring section and you will see ads for H&R block hiring and mentioning 'no experience needed'.Below are some tips to find a Local CPA that specializes in real estate1) Attend a Local REIA / Real Estate meetup and see who other investors are using as a CPA2) Network with other investors from your City/State that you find on bigger pockets and see who they use as a CPA3) Look for CPA's with good google/yelp reviews where 'real estate' is mentioned in the review.

And NO it does not come out of the deposit.Letting a tenant hire someone is not ever a good idea. 

One is to hire someone who can scrape that data from your county records.

You could either move into that side and repeat the process or hire the work out depending on your situation.  

If you're going to hire people to have workers compensation insurance.

While there are going to be a lot of resources for you (nolo.com for example) I would highly recommend that you hire an attorney and let them handle this and you ask them 100 questions along the way if this is something you want to know how to do on your own in your own city.