Your goal should be to have performance cap rates at 7-8% on something with a market cap of 5-6%, which gives you a healthy 200 basis point spread from the going market rate. 

He innovated/iterated on top of the Carrot high performing platform, it worked so well others have copied it (which would irk me as well), and now he's trying to protect his hard work (I totally get it.

Rather find a partner who will contribute same as you and you hire a GC strictly to perform the work.

@Annie Balagot Solterra typically performs pretty well as it has the amenities rival many of the other top communities, but it is further away and the traffic to get to the parks.

My advise is to start with single family or a small multi-family ground up project first but this market environment is truthfully not the time to be completing any ground up projects unless you are self performing the construction which it doesn't appear you are in a position to do.There was a recent Philadelphia  forum chain started by someone else who was contemplating ground up in a similar fashion to what you are proposing and I cautioned they would be better off buying something that was newly built and believe after conducting their own diligence realized it was too cost prohibitive at this time to build with 3rd party GC's in Philadelphia when also accounting for the interest rate environment and cost to build.

Under California foreclosure law, can a vendor place a mechanics lien on a home for work performed for the prior owner after the foreclosure sale and the recording (perfecting) of the deed?

Owners mistakenly ASSUME all PMCs offer the exact SAME SERVICES and PERFORM those services EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, so price is the only differentiator – so, they often select the first PMC they call or that calls them back!

Perform the same task in each app to ensure a fair comparison.Load a property with pictures and details.Market that property.See what your marketing looks like from the public's perspective.Submit a fake application to see how easy the process is.Run a credit/screening report on yourself.Enter a maintenance request, assign a vendor, and attach a fake invoice.Enter charges to the tenant's ledger.Enter recurring charges and automatic late fees.Sign documents electronically.Run owner reports.After testing a few apps, one should clearly stand out.

Do they perform well?

Generally, if you've got history of the lease performing (6+ months of pmt verification) and the lease amount is in line with the 1007, you won't have a problem finding an investor who will take this.