@Dan SchalkI believe you are mistaken that purely buying a property in Texas establishes residency for in state tuition. 

The new development will be completely different from the established area you are looking in, but might have some nice retail and such that will be an advantage to your area. 

They also want you to have an established bank account for that entity.

I’m in SF, she’s in the Dallas area where we are focusing for our first deal, and we have a RE agent and a few local lenders we are working with.1) Do you recommend establishing an LLC, or is this over complicating things for a first deal?

The added benefit of this process is that you can also have your attorney sign the public records as "Nominee Trustee" before assigning yourself as the "Trustee" once the Trust has been established.

As long as the partnership agreement is structured correctly and that you all can establish cash flow criteria for prospective investment projects. 

After reading a few books (long distance real estate investing, and Buy rehab rent refinance repeat @David Greene) and deciding what strategies we wanted to focus in on and try we found a property after establishing a team from long distance.

The zip code is in an established neighborhood. 

My strategy is developed entirely around a specific, quantifiable goal with an established deadline.

@Antonio Martinez When it comes to asset protection in CA, more often than not I will establish a DST (Delaware Statutory Trust) for my clients.