you can start on a "small" apartment complex then increase your quantities. 

From a practicality stand-point, using a local lender who is a known quantity in the area can help strengthen your offers in a still competitive market.

They are going to use the profits of the sale to build an apartment over the existing attached two car garage OR build a tiny house on my property.

Not those sleazy grimy SpeedyCash type loans with 700% interest written in teeny tiny fine print.

The reason is that you will likely pay a marginal more for property taxes after you renovate, marginal insurance premium increase, tiny bit more utilities, and that's about it.

It's difficult to research cost of concrete, earthwork, accessibility and quantities of workforce that are so detrimental to their region.

Truly, appraisals today are better than they ever have been.That said...The two major advancements are the quantity and quality of data now available.

I could put a tiny home (~$40,000) or metal kit house (~$20,000) on the property instead. 

In fact, the only schooling I had after graduating from high school was an audio engineering program from a tiny school called Dark Horse Institute in Franklin, Tennessee.

@Skyler Martinson1) I would probably actually fly out there in order to do the following:* Drive/walk through the neighborhoods* Meet up in person with the property manager2) HUD is involved because my tenant gets some form of government housing subsidies, my tenant actually pays a tiny portion of the rent, most of the rent is paid by HUD