I got the feeling that Dallas is expanding rapidly and the supply is dropping while demand continues to rise.

What you can also do is play offense on your property. 

Value is driven  by demand, Demand is driven by Jobs.

Going that route gets her the best of both worlds - she'll end up with tax free money from the sale, and capturing appreciation both on that place and the new place.If she's already lived in it long enough then other considerations would come into play. 

So you combine that with minimal to negative cash flow, and suddenly California really becomes an appreciation play (in my opinion). 

Your advice about spreading over multiple projects seems like a good play and will definitely lay that into our strategy.

The demand for these types of deals is so high that the agent will either buy it for themselves or refer it to someone in their very close network.

so square footage could potentially be an issue at play.

Before you get to comfortable, make sure there is a good demand in that area for that development. 

Once you go a few years out it becomes hard to project as there are too many factors that play into it.