But I'm confused/curious as to why this Electrical Contr is so willing to burn bridges over couple of grand, is he just stupid?

Here is a copy paste from a post of mine a couple years ago.http://forums.biggerpockets.com/viewtopic.php?

The Trustee of the REIT can buy and sell properties within the REIT without triggering a capital gain event to you as the investor, however, this flexibility also allows the operators to potentially add properties to your investment portfolio that may expose you to risks or asset classes you were previously unaware of.There are a couple of sponsors I am aware of that carve individual properties out of the REIT, into a DST, then pull them back into the REIT at a significant mark-up to the DST investor.

Typically those are shorter stays as they are doing something for a couple months vs staying for the entire semester or year.

@Eugene Lubman, There's a couple different considerations here. 

Hopefully only a couple of weeks till it's up and running.

I've modeled it out a couple of times. 

They visited Waco on the Magnolia tour idea and saw the houses, saw the prices and wished they could have moved there and just commuted maybe 1 or 2x a month for the office meeting.   90min drive every day would have been killer, but a couple of times a month they thought wasn't bad.

I would take a look at a couple different things, at least speaking from a tax perspective. 

If you had a decent war chest of funds for purchase and rehab, the area could be good if you want appreciation for the next couple years.