Its what get's you deals brought to you, its what gets capital flowing in your direction, and ultimately what creates success.  

Ultimately, it sounds like they did you a favor but that you need to curb the behavior to prevent unnecessary work and being over charged in the future.We have run into issues like this many times in the past.

Ultimately a personal decision.

Looking to the BP community for creative ways to boost NOI.

It is quite frustrating for sure and there are no shortage of people who take advantage of others but, ultimately, unless there is significant money you are loosing ($25k+) from this due to their lack of disclosure, it usually isn't worth your time.

You could also look at selling the "paper lots" in advance of building out the infrastructure, but that depends on your financial ability to take this from dirt to finished product, and ultimately for holding long-term if that's the goal.

I'm ultimately looking for 5+ unit deals but understand that 99.9% of the deals that come through are going to be SF and Duplexes, and that's okay. 

Ultimately I think that a BRRRR sounds like the route I want to take, but think maybe starting somewhere else could be less risky so I can get my feet wet first.

Start with BiggerPockets Ultimate Beginners Guide (free).

I took the recommendation of James Kojo about speaking with the syndication sponsors who ultimately allowed me to invest a lesser amount which allowed me to avoid investing as part of an LLC.