I'm located in Dallas so the labor cost and materials may be different but you can get an idea at least.

At which point I can make a more data driven decision. 

Have you ever ordered bulk materials from there?

Sad part is I’m driven I can find great deals currently have 3 houses that can make tons off but I don’t have anyone to help me and everyone wants thousands of dollars and doesn’t really involve any kind of actual mentoring but begging for help on their chats.

Alot depends on material choice and design complexity. 

Pay for labor only per job and cover the material cost yourself.

A lot of the expenses are driven by the market.

Keeping your payments artificially low seems great until you need the coverage and there is non because you made a material mis-representation in the contract.

They are effectively like any other syndication (by definition they are a syndication), but put in place a legal ownership structure to accommodate 1031 proceeds.I understand why they have higher fees than the typical syndication, given the complexity in their ownership structure compared to a "typical" syndication.At the end of the day, any return from a syndication (typical or DST) is going to be primarily driven by market cycles.  

Rail road ties will be considered hazardous material in many states now .