Over the past 20 years, the insurance market has a whole has been pretty soft, with a few flashes of hardening (after 911, and after the sub-prime issues of 2008), but nothing like what we're experiencing right now. 

.)- All in Cost = Cost to build * Square foot  - Sales Price = All in Cost + (All in cost * 20%)* Covers contractor and soft cost on either fee based or cost+- Profit = (Sales price - (Sales Price * 7%))* - All in Cost   accounts for agent fees and closing cost- Initial List Price = Sales price + 10%      A buffer to test market absorption- Break Even being All in cost, point where everyone is paid except me. - List price is to test the market absorption at "x" price. 250k land + build.

What I'm planning: buy and hold the property, brush and clean it up with intent to hold until cost of funds drops a little in 4-6 months.

Top producers are always very pleasant to work with (which does not mean they are soft)3.)

It's been great, we've hit over 4M in soft commits through 2 months, but we've only deployed about 500K.

Probably not going to happen when folks live right up next to dense oil soaked brush ( natural oil in the leaves) . 

These are all upfront soft costs before you break ground. $300sqft to build at least.If you have any sort of mortgage on the property you will need an attorney to handle the mountain of paperwork the bank will give you for a lien release. 10k+, also probably some nightmare terms to have to build and sell immediately and god knows what.At this point a year has passed and you have spent at least $60,000 cash, you're about to break ground on a structure that will cost you at the very least $400,000 to build, you are still 1 year away from cashing out because you have to now build a house.

I applied for a HELOC and when they ran the title it came up that the 8k grant is actually a second "soft" lien against my property that will go away after 5 years which prevents this bank from allowing me to have a HELOC.

Fortunately for our 100+ house community, the fire department was already on site battling the brush fire and about a dozen fire fighters frantically extinguished the 4 or 5 roofs burning.This is insignificant compared to what has happened in LA, Palisades, Malibu and Altadena however having lived through Hurricane Andrew and many other major storms even this experience was drastically more terrifying and chaotic. 

.$24K in soft costs (permits impact fees etc)$200K (or less) buildout of the house (size tbd on after-build-appraisal) Likely going with 2/2 A frame 1000 sf.