Rehab or replace? How to start redeveloping land.

[Scott Bell]

People always talk about rehab and rent or flip. What about replacing a property. I listened to a podcast about real estate development, now all I see are the properties that I can replace. Old mobile homes, barely standing stick builds, and empty land. 

What are some good resources to learn this model of real estate? old podcasts, books that are recommended, people or groups to join? 

[Matt Devincenzo]

Something to understand with 'development' is it is very regional, and therefor difficult to provide good meaningful advice that translates nationwide. For example I work as a site Civil in So Cal, and if I showed you a urban in-fill lot that could be split into two it could cost ~50K and take around 2 years total. My Mom lives in Central FL and completed a lot split for the first time by herself for ~1,500 and it took less than 6 months. The process is also radically different, one requires mapping tied to GPS coordinate systems the other allows for a simple deed described subdivision. 

So the best advice as an engineer who does this for a living, is for land development pick a place generally where you might want to do this. Then go online and find that areas municipal code and start reading through it. You're not trying to be an expert, just looking to understand what it says about lot sizes, zones, requirements etc. Then pick a parcel any parcel and just start 'applying' those criteria. This will help you start to see how these criteria impact what your site can actually support, so when you actually pursue a project site and you get an engineer involved you aren't surprised by what he tells you can be designed for that property. 

If you're more interested in the in-fill scenario, maybe buying an old manufactured home on land and building a new spec home, then it's less the development issues above and more construction costs etc. So in that case you really need to either find a GC who could build for you, or understand what it would take for you to manage a construction project yourself.