Lynn, unfortunately by receiving the proceeds in your name & not in an exchange intermediary name you violated the 1031 requirements.

You can do this in parallel with step 2, but complete 2 & 3 before proceeding to 4.4) Identify the types of properties and areas that are suitable for your strategy and start intimately familiarizing yourself with that market.

I often see this stated over and over that a buyer agent is "free" but in reality is paid from the proceeds of the sale.

We actually got this sone pretty quickly to my surprise, especially since none of them were receiving any of the proceeds form the sale. 

I was doing a little bit of reading up on the BRRR strategy blog post by Brandon Turner here on BiggerPockets. I'm slightly confused on the refinancing aspect of the strategy. I'll use his example to demonstrate:Let's...

Proceed with caution! 

We used it before on infrastructure and bonding for municipal works and for phased commercial but I've not seen it specific for residential.The other option would be to simply get the best construction loan possible and then use the 1031 proceeds to pay down the mortgage before moving in later and doing a refi on a lessor amount.

@Ryan King - before you go sanding the floors, test them for lead paint and proceed accordingly.While I'm not sure what was/is used out in your parts, here along the east coast, pine and fir was (and still is) widely used as a flooring.  

Can we then get the city, etc. to drop their lawsuits so we can proceed as our budgets allow rather than as they might want?

If you're here for the next 4-5 foreseeable years without any big changes on the horizon, proceed.2) Househacking is most assuredly your easiest way to get started, especially if you don't already own a property.