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.

Be consistent.Well I am not sure about you all, but as a NASA robotics scientist, an Aerospace engineer, and Mathematician, .... if something doesn't work, I definitely am not going to do it some more and "stay consistent" right?

What we do, ultimately, is financial engineering, and it doesn't happen in a vacuum - it happens in response to the current and anticipated future environment.  

You’ll need to engage the services of a structural engineer.

Generally speaking, it still takes at least 3-6 weeks to turn around a permit, 4-8 weeks to get engineered drawings, and construction can be months out because we're still suffering from building contractor and trade shortages as contractors are booked out rebuilding from all the wildfires over the last 6 years.

My day job is a software engineer by the way.

I'm also a software engineer looking to find a way to start a passive income stream.

Hello everyone, my situation is as follows:I'm moving to Texas for my job after graduating college and the job I landed as an engineer will be paying 80k/year + some bonuses, which is pretty solid for a first job.