When this all went south, he told me he was going to refund me for the money I spent on appraisals for my five properties. $1000 apiece worth 5000 in total.

They spent 1K on them from upwork and it helped resolve concerns in the meeting real time with some neighbors had who were just picturing the project their own way which was completely different than what the emerging developer was proposing. 

There's no refund for the time and effort spent.2) Dependent upon City/County Approval: Even after all the due diligence, we're still dependent on the city commission's approval.

I said all that to say this its several folk in both classes that have spent money and time and will get nothing out of it .

I spent months researching this.

With margin trading of 20-25% of initial investment, when stocks market collapses with dollar cost averaging as a strategy  , leverage of the initial investment in stocks, the AAR can be more.comparable to most syndication (compared to 20% down payment in real estate).I have been following BP forums for the last 4-5 months and have spent almost 4-500 hours.

I have spent the last year doing some reading and learning while I save money.

Just ignore the $90K you invested to pay off the HELOC because, I guess, well, you didn't have it, you just spent it on loan payments rather than something else.  

I haven't spent a ton of money overall on improvements.

Also, I really wanted the units to be up to my standard, but I think I spent more on them making them look better with upgrades, etc, than I needed to.