Reputation is important (not only in terms of good build quality, because the quality of the houses builders built is heavily depend on the quality of the superintendent they had overseeing the project and the quality of subcontractors they used).

I agree that Florida real estate prices (and rents) are likely to either grow less quickly than the rest of the country, or decline more rapidly.

This is a ground-up development coordinated by CC&F (https://ccfne.com/), an operator that has been in business for 120 years and has built over 100 million sq ft of commercial real estate.

I'm considering a rowhome in baltimore city that was built long before 1978, and it is not registered with the maryland lead program.

I think if you can find a $300k house that's a 3x2 that needs a little bit of work and you can have some small equity built up day 1 that might work.I would look in the Apopka, Forest City, Longwood, Casselberry, and Winter Springs areas and try to find a house for around $300k, the rent should be $1700-$2,200 and that might cash flow you a little bit.

On the books are Margaritaville development and Hard Rock development with 1000s of acres of homes to be built, that is a bit north and west of Sherman. 

Even so we generated more cash-flow and built equity faster than any real estate investment we made, or even all of them together.

I recently moved to Sarasota from Boise where I built homes.

I'd recommend going more north West Palm Beach area is growing rapidly, has a brightline station & has announced some significant devlopments over the the next several years that are very appealing to draw more people students etc.   

For results, RE cost seg (our partner for full transparency) built a calculator that allows folks to see conservative and then more aggressive estimates.