I guess building in phases helps to mitigant some of that risk but at the same time while you have land being moved and foundations/roads being poured it seems to make sense to do quite a bit at the same time?!

If you want to be within driving distance, CA still may make sense. 

So, I don't think procuring cause applies here at all UNLESS they were using the OLD outdated no longer used Nonexclusive agency agreement but that wouldn't make sense because they talked about "cancelling" it which with a Nonexclusive agreement makes no sense.

House hacking makes complete sense from what you said.

In order for it to make sense you should atleast get a 11% return on that money.

If they were commercial assets then different LLC’s make sense.

On the other hand it doesn't always make sense.

@William Silva if you can buy in your own backyard, it can make sense to DIY manage. 

I’ve looked at a dozen deals and none make sense or require 40%+ DOWN!

Only buy when the numbers make sense.