SFR adjacent to future luxury MFR development, deal or no deal?

[Luis Toledo]

I got a lead yesterday on a 2/1/1200sqft home on .3 acres that's adjacent to a 4.75 acre parcel bought last year for $4 million to develop high end apartments. When I say "adjacent", I mean it actually borders the larger parcel on two sides and would be the key to acquiring an additional .3 acre parcel on the other side of my lot to fill out the rectangle of the development.

The property is very convenient to a prestigious local university and hospital. Assuming the developer would pay the same price per square foot for this parcel that they paid for the large lot, it would go for twice what the owner is asking.

Assuming this property isn't bought from me by the developer, it would be a great parking lot as it could service the nearby university/hospital as well as provide overflow for the MFR, it could also be potentially be rezoned commercial and be a great restaurant location.

I'm trying to find a local commercial developer/investor to talk through options. My plan is to get it under contract today and hold it as a student rental in the short term unless I can flip it to a developer for a quick profit. I'm looking at a slight negative cash flow if I rent it out.

I'm new to this sort of thing but I really think there's a deal to be had here, it's just not straight forward. Advice? This is the first lead I got from my first letter campaign.

[Joe Fairless]

@Luis Toledo congrats on the lead from your letter campaign! The first thing I'd check is what it's zoned for and what the process would be to change it from residential (assuming it's currently zoned for that since there's a house) to multifamily or other uses. I'd also look at the zoning pattern in the area to see what the county wants to do with the land. You can do that by looking at how they are zoning surrounding properties.

Also, sometimes there's a "future land use" study the county puts out that shows where they want zoning to go in the future.