I use cement board under all tile. 

B buy a building with your credit, get a mixed use approved. don't improve 7000 sq ft as a tenant. all the rich guys are owning real estate. negotiate with yourself market rent and multiple tenants. occupy less than 25%. look at land. don't do this. 7300 sq ft is crazy to build out for a dental practice. get a few other dentists to split the cost with you and do a sale leaseback, you can probably sell the building and roll the business up to a private reit attach real estate to it. 

Looking at names drawn in the cement sidewalks, we later confirmed this to be the childhood home of a good friend’s wife.

You don't want to piss these people off too bad.I have seen people dump cement down the toilets on a ranch slab and the floor had to be jack hammered up and a bunch of new pipe put in.Have also seen a person tie a refrigerator to the top flight of the stairs so when you came in the front door it came flying down at you.Also have seen where they take a sledge hammer or regular one and go all throughout the property making holes in the wall so you have to replace all of the sheet rock.When you offered 6,000 what was their response??

What you are probably smelling is the cement.

It can be placed on a cement slab too.  

As a one-off experiment it was neither cheap nor outrageously expensive.Another two are different compositions of recycled glass (one with resin and the other with fly-ash and cement);A third is quartzThe final test countertop is made from stranded bamboo.

They're more likely to understand business and opportunity cost.Try asking an accountant for a discount because you've done your own taxes beforeTry asking a lawyer for a discount because you majored in political scienceTry asking a dentist for a discount because you brush your teeth every dayTry asking the grocery clerk to rebate you a percentage because you collected all your own groceries and they didn't even ask how your day wasRealtors are professionals that have an established pay rate.

I don’t see much difference in painted brick vs painted cement siding as far as a building envelope is concerned.  

A family member's credit was not that great, but it went up quickly in just over a year thanks to contacting some creditors, like working things out with a credit card company that had messed up his auto-pay but he didn't realize what was going on until it hurt his credit, calling a dentist who had a judgment for a past bill he wasn't even aware of, then clearing it up for a reduced fee, etc.