Local government is landlord friendly and taxes and cost of living are lower.

One cannot control the outside forces (government/economy/career/medical/etc.). 

But if you think appreciation has stalled or capital expense might be lurking then a 1031 is better than just a sale because you get the compounding effect of the deferred tax working for you not the government.

I am working on a few deals in three separate markets where the federal government has selected my client's bid to lease their building and was trying to find my client a lender who would provide 100% Loan to cost for the deal.

You need to contact the governing body that has jurisdiction over the zoning laws for either the incorporated or unincorporated of the county or city for the plot you are interested in building on.  

You'll need to provide Entity Docs for each LLC that is a part of the transaction so that the underwriters can review them all the way down to the natural individuals/warm bodies. 

Look up the rules for Georgia (google it and look at the government website). 

I've personally worked with a handful of "investor-friendly" lenders, primarily on DSCR loans in recent years, and each time I've run into significant delays, lack of transparency about the process, have been fed the requirements in a piecemeal fashion (every few days there's a new random request rather than having it all organized from the start), and have even run into lenders who were substantially misinformed about the real estate industry or the laws that govern it on both a local and federal level.I think there should be a better site to encourage accountability by tracking how long it actually takes each lender to close their loans on average, and what unexpected hurdles investors encounter when trying to work with them.I can't seem to find such a site.

They are application fees, plan review fees, maybe/maybe not impact fees (tens of thousands of dollars paid to the local government so you can develop a raw land), permitting fees, rezoning fees if rezoning is required. 3.)

Some plans include house hacking, seller loans, flipping, creative deals, private cash, group deals, sweat equity, and government help.