Great topic — ground-up projects can produce strong margins, but execution risk is where many investors get caught off guard.From the builder/developer side, the biggest challenges we consistently see are:1️⃣ Site Work UnknownsFill, compaction, drainage, and soil conditions can shift budgets quickly — especially in markets where lot conditions vary significantly.2️⃣ Utilities & Impact FeesWater/sewer access, well/septic requirements, and local impact fees are often underestimated during underwriting.3️⃣ Environmental FactorsProtected species, wetlands, and flood elevation requirements can affect both timelines and build costs.4️⃣ Permit TimelinesApproval periods — particularly when civil or environmental reviews are involved — can extend holding costs beyond initial projections.5️⃣ Builder Execution CapacityProject success often comes down to the operator’s systems, trade relationships, and cycle times — not just the numbers on paper.Because of these hurdles, we’re seeing more investors lean toward ready-to-build projects — where feasibility, plans, and permitting are already in progress or completed — as a way to reduce entitlement risk and shorten timelines.Ground-up can be extremely rewarding, but the upfront diligence and execution planning are what ultimately determine outcomes.Always happy to compare notes with other investors and builders working through similar projects.

Doing proper research — looking at the chain of title and checking the NY court system — gives you an edge most first-time buyers don’t have.I actually maintain a Brooklyn Pre-Foreclosure dataset (updated Oct 2025) that pulls verified filings straight from the New York State Unified Court System, showing dates of default, mortgage balances, and more.

I'd do maybe $1200 on lead gen (direct mail, driving for dollars, cold calling) and $800 on systems to actually work those leads - skip tracing, follow-up sequences, basic CRM stuff.

Every system you try will have flaws or you'll salivate over a feature that shows up in other software.

My wife and I worked full time 8-5 corporate jobs until we had over 20 doors (at which time one of us quit and started managing real estate as our full time job.)I have written before about how one of the best things we did was to subscribe to a cloud-based tenant management system to handle some of the day to day 'heavy lifting'... though that might be an overstatement... overall managing properties is pretty easy.

Something I've noticed with guys who've been doing this for decades: you usually have systems locked down that us newer investors are still figuring out.

While you’re getting set up with a laptop, you can already be listening to podcasts, watching beginner-friendly content, and getting comfortable with the idea of working virtually and building systems instead of relying on being local.If you have any specific questions, feel free to send me a message.

Until I’ve walked the property, reviewed systems, and understood tenant quality, the only honest way to get to a rough number is applying a percentage proxy.

I’m also building out a small property management and maintenance business with my family (Caldwell Ownership Group), so I’m trying to get my systems tight as we grow.I just upgraded to BP Pro and want to make sure I’m actually using everything the platform offers instead of letting features sit untouched.

But lower rates alone won’t solve supply if it’s still too hard to build.Pairing state-level land reform with faster, smarter local permitting—Louisville has a real chance to keep housing investment inside the city instead of watching it spill farther outward.Affordability doesn’t improve with one sweeping fix.It improves when enough small constraints are removed that the system can finally move.Louisville has started loosening a few of those constraints.The opportunity now is to push them further, deliberately.