Of course you don't want to over pay for land, but site conditions and construction type will dictate costs....is there underpinning?

I pay about $2500 a year for each of my partnership returns with my CPA regardless of whether it’s a $1M deal or a $5M deal.I would save the partnership conversation for if and when you are doing much bigger deals.

For example if you think the house is worth 200K fixed up you need to pay 100K to afford the hard money loan and rehab budget and still have a profit.

FWIW Its California , you probably need a permit  to do just about anything as long as you pay the fee 

However, aside from that, I couldn’t find much information about them, and the only online presence seems to be the wife’s LinkedIn profile (though I’ve never met her in person and am just going off her profile picture on Zillow).After submitting the application through Zillow, we attached our income (two months of pay stubs for each of us from our current jobs), work references, credit and criminal background, rental history, and the contact info for our current landlord (who just so happens to be my fiancé’s father).

A tenant not paying has nothing to do with us either.

And hopefully I can be financially independent by paying the mortgage down eventually.  

This leaves here with almost $500k in capital gains to pay tax on.I'm trying to find creative ways in which she can minimize this tax burden. 

I could take look at it for you, and help you understand it if it's a standard lease, no need to pay me, although I am not a lawyer.  

Given that I would pay 3/4 of the property's assessed value I think this could be a great opportunity.