Our goal now is to go the civil engineer route, where we have the plans for the load bearing wall approved by the civil engineer, and have him supervise the construction.

We decided after that near-burn to begin looking in Pueblo, about 50 mins from where we live now.

It's an interesting field to me and I'm excited to get my feet wet.Outside of this newly established real-estate journey, I work a 3-11 at a Honda engine plant, which provides me with stable income to invest with...especially in this low-cost-of-living area in the Mid-West that I reside in. 

They market hard for their borrower investors. as they burn through them .. because many frankly just don't do that well and take a huge risk buying a home that has not had an inspection. 

(unless they are a large company, of course).they will immediately think you are a pain to work with. i know how it feels to be burned and it sucks. good luck. to me, finding contractors is the worst part of this business.

@William Wong Student rentals can be very time consuming, I highly recommend that you do it in a market you are very close to if you do it.You will also want to take steps to making sure you don't get burned, here are a few that I have done:*Get parents to co-sign the lease, a student will be less likely to trash the place and not pay rent if mom or dad are going to be getting a phone call.

I'm studying Mechanical Engineering at BYU and will graduate next spring.

It may be worth considering spending a few years on Wall Street building a bank account until you burn out.  

There can be actual fees required, appraisal fees or third party fee such as to an engineer for inspections, so, what is the fee for?

What's unbelievable to me is that personal finance is not required in college, kids get through medical school and law school or engineering without having a finance course!