With regard to renovations, I always suggest taking incremental steps to bigger renovations or partnering with someone who has already done a renovation at that level.I've been known to just go for the big rehabs for my personal investments here in Chicago , and during that process, it's always more stressful than it needs to be...As far as navigating the competition, I've found the best thing I can do is get EXTREMELY CLEAR  on what I am looking for; then I am confident pulling the trigger quicky. 

If anyone has advice for someone in my shoes moving to the Salt Lake County/Utah county area and possibly the city of Logan, It would be much appreciated.

its most unfortunate that you had to go through this deception and theft from someone who is considered a professional in this business. we definitely appreciate you putting the warning out about this character. as hard as it is to find a reliable experienced contractor nowadays its even harder to find one that's not a crook and a liar and that's truly pathetic.   

Someone messaged me months ago and told me to quit spilling the beans on the whole build and to wait until it’s done/sold before I discuss anymore numbers.

.- You will have to come out of pocket for the arears, fees etc, just to get into "contract" some times $20k or more and all you have as protection is the word of someone who's proven to be unreliable and a signed piece of paper... 

Lauren Lauren, there are hundreds of syndications (and crowdfunding deals which are essentially the same as syndications but are available on the Internet) available each year.

You are taking over for someone who didn't care at all about the rules and you want the city to just be like, "yeah, this is fine"?

My question, is why steal someone's dream?

The problem there is you only have 200k and there are a lot of local lenders that offer similar same terms, so why would anyone chose someone outside of the states?

Hoping that someone could provide some guidance on this so I can decide how to proceed?