What I’m trying to say from all this is that the market is a little frothy right now and you should probably buy for current fundamentals in case the market goes down. 10 years might turn into 20 if you don’t buy something that makes sense today.Feel free to private message me and ask more questions.

This just makes 100% perfect sense to me am I wrong?

A number of investors in Austin will tell you that RE has been bid up to a point where the deals don't make sense and have moved on to smaller submarkets. 

If this deal makes sense it’s probably going to be a cash deal.

So in that sense you've got plenty of time - both to set up the 1031 and to continue your due diligence for your replacement properties.And although it may feel daunting you've done a fantastic job of distilling down the questions. 

Hopefully that made sense and was helpful.

I'd love to hear from more experienced investors in similar market class (SF flips and small MF buy and hold) about which calculations they use to give me a better idea of how to make sense of the numbers. 

In a sense, we would be accepting the risk of this place potentially decreasing in value as much as it could appreciate (e.g. if there's an earthquake or other major damage, etc).

For someone that is more interested in the investment side it seems like it makes more sense to focus on commercial versus residential .

If you find the right company those are usually good to get started if the deal makes sense.