IM looking for agents to source and asses deals as well as general contractors and/or subs who can produce quality work in a reasonable amount of time and a decent price.

This would leave me roughly $220k that I would take and purchase income producing real estate outright (there would be no loan or mortgage on these properties).

A lot of people use a 1% or 2% rule of thumb, meaning the rent income should equal 1 - 2% of the purchase price. 1% would be $2,700 a month income and you're projecting closer to .7% which is not a good deal.You could also evaluate the property using the 50% rule and see that it's not producing enough income for you.

And I mentioned (and others) the same rules could produce unintended consequences--the exact opposite effect.

Most investors know this and immediately distrust the sponsor upon hearing a forecast like that unless your client can produce a track record of having delivered a similar return on previous deals that have gone full-cycle. 

My current line of work is as a producer of online content.

For SEP and qualified plans, net earnings from self­employment is your gross income from your trade or business (provided your personal services are a material income­ producing factor) minus allowable business deductions To learn more about self-employment income rules, see the following. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employed-individuals-tax-center

Most importantly for your consideration, we have produced numerous entitled land deals, where we have acquired, entitled, and sold to both homebuilding and apartment development companies.

These income producing properties are a good source of income for our business especially in the tough times to cover overhead when we aren't building homes.

The safe harbor applies to amounts paid during the tax year to acquire or produce what the regs call a “unit of property” (UOP), you must meet these requirements: (1) at the beginning of the tax year, the taxpayer has written accounting procedures treating as an expense for non-tax purposes amounts paid for property costing less than a specified dollar amount (which will be 2500 for you), or with an economic useful life of 12 months or less;.(2) the taxpayer treats the amount paid for the property as an expense on its books and records in accordance with its accounting procedures. ( do this on your bookkeeping software or whatever you utilize)(3) the amount paid for the UOP doesn't exceed $2,500. as substantiated by invoice.Note: The cost for the Unit of Property includes additional costs (for example, delivery fees, installation services, or similar costs) if these additional costs are included on the same invoice with the tangible property.Eg:A purchases 100 printers at $500 each for a total cost of $500,000 as indicated by the invoice.