Its complicated, but it has everything to do with custody of my child and keeping her in the same school.

Ouch.How to avoid this- have your attorney involved in your due diligence process and know your seller and chain of custody.

Your plan to get into an MFR and 1031 exchange it to what you want is interesting - but the cautions raised above regarding that are very important to consider if that still is your plan.  1031 exchanges are a nightmare of physical restrictions that the government thinks will define and regulate your 'intent' - as they see it.But you and your wife are in a very good situation as W-2 earners for this very interesting side reason:  your benefits plan!  

Price are continually driving up with low supply and high demand with how many people are both looking to move here physically or moving their money here.

So, a linking of the built/physical space of properties/planning with the social space of people with some mediation via technology. 

I found a great cloud-based brokerage that will allow me to train without physically being in the office taking leave from my military position.I think about finding a brokerage like going shoe shopping.

In general, investing at the business level (marketing, prospecting, hiring, software, masterminds, etc) will drive growth more than solely investing in physical real estate.

NuWireInvestor.com has a list of custodians by assets under custody and TPAs noted as such. http://selfdirectedira.nuwireinvestor.com/list-of-...You can call pretty much anyone on that list and they can give you a step by step as to how the process of making an offer and signing paperwork works.If you are looking at using retirement funds to invest in RE, but you are not 100% comfortable with the process (after speaking to a custodian), I would suggest taking a loan from your current 401k to use for RE investing.

The next stage in the matrix is called land development which consists of horizontal physical improvements like grading soil, installing wet and dry utilities, street improvements and flatwork (pouring streets and sidewalk, etc.). 

I have a lot of land leads, but they don't have a physical address, only a TAX ID.