Not many are building new in this climate and the cash equity players want to large of a share to inject capital.The other thing is there are so many fractured projects you can buy from banks and re-purpose for a fraction of replacement costs.Material costs are stable but labor is cheap right now for construction.In my area usually they just set up an LLC for the project with a JV equity agreement.

@Tomiko Graves I'm writing to inject a little humor into your situation but the more I think about it the more I think this may work to your advantage.

Glossing over that difference injects a lot of misunderstanding and silliness in the process.A flip renovation focuses on getting high-end finishes and touches into a project.

I would recommend taking the money as a gift and offering them a % of the rents as part of their injection of money.

A way to overcome the obstacle of buying a “bubbly” asset is to inject value add such as renovations or adding bedrooms and/or exercising a more profitable rental strategy such as MTR for your units. 

Cash-flow and California don't really go hand-in-hand, but you could consider other strategies or figure out an amount of cash you're comfortable injecting into a rental property to hold it.

A lot of multifamily properties are being offered at higher prices...this one despite its capex needs meets my unit amt/price range... essentially after injecting the necessary capital, proper management and upgrades the building should bring the property value up 10-20%.... 

And good chance that more units will start to sell and fresh blood will be injected into the HOA.

Because she has other construction projects (she's a small time RE developer with a full construction team), her funds are tied up and her personal cash injection is have "seasoning" issues.  

I have no doubt that if I proposed opening a "safe injection site" to the left of you and a 300 unit, 6 story apartment building to the right of you, that you'd be at the meetings screaming NIMBY!