The Ellis act is used to refurb older units but imo, that's an exercise in flogging oneself and for me, Class D properties never yield enough to entice me.

If you have any conditions requiring performance by a buyer/tenant in connection with an option, where performance is required in order to exercise the option, you don't have an option and you may have a financing contract taking a payment that reduced the sale price.

So whatever the local notice requirement is for chattel in a local periodical would apply to give the leasehold notice to exercise the recovery of the chattel.  

Breaking it down further, is often an exercise in futility in my experience. 

Maybe 120 days but it goes away if not exercised/paid.

That way if the developer backs out, you can choose not to exercise your option.

Taking a macro-view of real estate is a dangerous exercise for investors - you have to drill down market by market to have things make sense, and to find the real treasures out there today.

Every morning before doing anything else I spend time exercising, writing down my goals/things I have to do to achieve them, and reading.

I agree that determining true market value in Atlanta right now is an exercise in craziness but I really am concentrating on networking, acquiring my RE license and educating myself.

If not, you don't exercise the option.