It seems difficult to get started with little money.

The problem is that your debt payments are going to basically wipe out that $400K profit unless there is room to increase revenue or reduce expenses.

What the investor will have is a long term appreciating asset; that will provide an increasing cash flow as rental rates increase, and steady amortization as the note is paid down.  

Given his spending habits during his first term, it might be a wash.Costs to build new properties will probably increase.

Building for seismic zones is actually not all that difficult.

page=LoadVirtualDoc&BookmarkID=6536) that capped annual increases to the Taxable Value of a property to the lower of 5% or Michigan's Cost of Living increase.

The use of the accelerated depreciation strategy helps real estate investors to reduce the tax liability immediately which therefore increases their bottom line due to the offsetting of income.

Given these numbers and his research, he believes it may either cash flow slightly or at least break even, which has made it a bit more difficult to find an end buyer. 

The state laws (do not quote me) appear to not let these companies increase rates (or its not easy) to pick up the losses.

In your market it is difficult to find mulit family RE that was recently built and reasonably priced.