I was lucky to find a decent 1978 home to flip for my next project, but I'm going to have to consider larger tracts of land in the near future and was curious what other investors are doing in tight markets where good deals are hard to find.

@Mark HudsonState laws differ for co tracts, real estate, leases, etc., so my sending you the one used in Texas would or could do more harm then good.

Properties should be in the same tract, or you need to know how to adjust them for condition, age, view, upgrades, amenities, and 20 other things.You need sale date, value, upgrades... 

(Successful builders of tract homes didn't start there - they gained experience and ended up there.)If you have skills and a few good trades people, you can do well buying distressed, fixing, and retailing homes. 

However, I believe you are on tract with Metro-LAX, personally I believe wherever they have those landing sites where LAX users unload passengers, it is a good area, and there are 8 of them.

Land in the path of progress  carefully chosen Timber or AG tracts etc etc.. so there is many ways to slice the real estate orange up.. end of the day though the true measure is IRR not COC .. that is if your ever going to stop being a landlord..

What I'm doing is buying them with hard money, getting them repaired and rented, then refinancing them with my commercial portfolio lender once I have a small tract record of rents.

You might think a cosmetic-only repair 3/2 in a desirable neighborhood should cost $260k, while she's trying to show you that current prices are about $400k, and practically no price difference between sales prices of finest of 1980's mauve decor tract shack and the same house after a full HGTV rehab.

After all, the property is the only one and unique (to the owner) despite that it might be a model-match house in a suburban house tract development.

depending on the state you live in i have a 2-unit owner occupied loan with 5% down and no pmi. min 660 fico and 2 ways to qualify. either the property must be in LMI area of if income is below 80% of median income tract.