Seems that way in the business of Land Flipping...which is a red flag in my eyes...maybe it's not a part of the real estate sector I need to get into. 

She and my step father bought an undeveloped land (Roosevelt California) - residential zone back in 1995-1996 I think from a realty broker that time.

This sometimes can kill the deal if you are in a flood zone.

Also check to see if the property is in a flood zone and whether there are any environmental contaminants.

unless they are in zoning and land entitlement or land development it wouldn't be developers. if they are that's not a design build firm that's a land development company. make sure to understand how they earn their income and how they come in. how the earn their revenue will be more reflective of what their business is than what they say it is 

What does the permitting process look like and getting the zoning changed? 

I owned and operate 2 ALFs in Arizona for last 17 years , let me know what questions you have keep mind laws are different in each state you will be under Department of Health licensing rules and City Planning Zoning rules Good luck! 

You also need to understand what the current zoning is and and current development value.

Quote from @George Red: I echo what @Jon K. said... if you're still interested after doing some additional due diligence, try starting with 1-3 as opposed to jumping into 10.

from spending my last 10 weeks in miami looking at 500 land deals and making offers and doing underwriting on deals with construction values higher, the playing field above 10 million is so much easier and better and of more interest and separates all the newbies from sophisticated. at my level there is no reason to do small deals. the only multifamily I do under commercial at this point is a triplex we build over and over for out of state investors in Columbus Ohio which is just a unique little niche. tampa I'm not too familiar with zoning or rezoning but columbus is such an old city it has so many mutilfamily properties and rezoning is very easy to get the entitlements for ground up new construction.