For example, a bank would never give someone like me who hasn't built before, a loan to build like this, but we are doing it through our company which has a great track record and I will buy it upon completion.I mainly went with a new build because I thought it was a very unique opportunity given the connections I have working in a development and property management company.

Again, others might disagree.a) Track Record: Get the entire track record for the strategy.

If you mean trying to track a deal from start to finish to see how it went I can show you a bunch and walk you through where things go wrong and how to protect yourself.

I think you are definitely on the exact right track with your thinking - have you put all this side by side in excel (very basic excel "modeled out")>? 

Get a good accounting software to track everything.

(yellow, blue, handwritten, scribbles).19.Slap a unique tracking phone number on each mailer design.20.Spend another fortune sending mailers, again.21.Get yelled at, again.22.Remove people from the list that demand it, again.23.Receive a bunch of returned mailers, again.24.Spend another fortune to skip trace and resend the new mailers… again.25.Subscribe to your favorite real estate investing forum and ask people what you are doing wrong.26.Try hard to make sense of their response: “If all this is not working for you, it means you didn’t do it enough, do more (of what obviously is not working), and stay consistent”.27.Get depressed.28.Get yourself together.29.Do it all over again.30.

At the end of a set number of years I will pay you in full the remainder of the loan balance which we can track with the amortization calendar.

They had cleared it, put some gravel in of some sort, fenced it with barbed wire on top, manual gate on tracks and flood lights in the corners.

Leveraging an owner occupied loan, putting as little as 5% down with a conventional mortgage (I have lenders that will offer NO pmi as well) and buying a multi family will fast track your REI journey. 

You want to know where you have flexibility and options to change so you can make decisions as you go to stay on track.