I was told the perk tester was also an engineer well versed in mobile home park placement and engineering.

When I was in Berkeley CA as a graduate engineering student on a $18000/year fellowship stipend, I was asked to prepay 6 months by the apartment’s electronic system (probably yardi) with a 750+ credit score because I had limited income and didn’t want my mom to cosign.

Are you a structural engineer?

I think I would have an engineer or trade expert check things out. 

It's very likely that we'd spend the next year working with architects, designers and engineers...so very little (if any) actual work would be going on at the property.

There seem to be a good number of cash flowing properties in the 175k-200k range.Both of us already own individual primary residencies, we're both engineers with relatively high paying, stable jobs that we plan on keeping for the forseeable future. 

But the engineering will dominate the cost. 

I have no knowledge of a building but have an engineering background and looking for a good resource to self-teach from. 

I suggest finding the lender you plan to use first and reverse engineer your buying process to ensure success.

Both my wife and I have W2 jobs (nurse and engineer) as well as 3 boys aged 4 and under.