Do you have a 1031 exchange clause in your contract so you have the time to find a suitable replacement property?

I doubt you'd go to Grease Monkey to get your engine worked on.

I've found a couple new builds after tear downs and replacing with much bigger houses that are going for over 450k.

New to the industry, want to learn as much as possible. 

Even in very exacting jobs (e.g. space craft design), where even a small mistake is literally a mission critical life & death issue, they use 'rules' to avoid over-engineering (or to use another phrase 'analysis paralysis').The 'rules' for real estate investing are not intended to be exact or fully comprehensive.

I will get the professional feasibility analysis started immediately followed up by the civil engineering work.

Also wood siding on the outside is wearing out, needs to be replaced, looks like they patched it in places with plastic sidding.  

Our goal is to get buy and hold properties to replace our current paychecks and don't flips to pay off the loans.

The meters are probably going to need replacing.

I am currently employed as an engineer and working on paying of my first home.My plan is to finish paying off my primary residence before moving on to conservative buy and hold investment in a couple nearby cities.