@Ben Feder  "Life shrinks, or expands, in direct proportion to your willingness to assume risk.... the right time is always, right now." - Casey NeistatObviously I'm not recommending anyone throw money into something they aren't yet comfortable with so maybe you are giving yourself the wrong choice - to invest, or not to invest. 

I may have a different view point, because I have been an investor much longer than an agent, but here are some tips:- an agent's knowledge is proportional to the number of deals they do: national average is 7, which means many do 2 or 3. 

@Adam PondProblem is, rent price is not proportional to house price.

When you have low rental properties capex takes a greater proportion of monthly rent.

MF construction has been on a tear of epic proportions.

The income and expense pie charts get pushed to the next page when I add my logo, no matter what size and width/height proportion I change our logo to.

I think I conservatively estimate $5k which includes the initial escrow for taxes and insurance.And yes you are right that the proportion of the cost is higher for lower priced properties.

Average commissions are inversely proportional to the number of licensed agents in a market, which fluctuates with the economy.

If the price you need to sell the land for with leveling and compaction with utilities to the site or curb is too high for what a developer would pay for profit built in then you have a huge problem with the project.

So scarify 6" to let it dry, compact, scarify again as needed, etc.