Lacking access to the financing to buy and build on large acreage, my thinking was to start small with a couple acres and build one or two homes, get some experience working with a lender that I can hopefully parlay into a bigger development the next time, and so on …Would love any advice/thoughts on this!

If you have constant access to great deals that you have access to and he doesn't, have him front the money and you manage the process and even get in there and help the contractor with your labor.

*Due to my job, I have access to some brilliant people as well as trades people all across the board and will also have a broker's license. 

One bedroom room with an exterior door and no access to the rest of my house makes us between $500-1200 per month. 

Otherwise, uniqueness of property and area, but also limited to no accessibility constraints and limited to no hotel presence. 

There are many options online that can help you calculate your ROI, but the formula is relatively simple:Total Cost to Invest (purchase price + rehab + any holding costs + commissions and closing costs on both sides of the transaction)Net Profit (sales price - total cost)Formula: Net profit / Total Cost = ROI %Also, not sure if you would like access to a spread sheet/calculator that can do this for you, but I have created my own. 

most builders pay a flat fee for MLS access and then hire in house. that's what I would do. 50k for a person to sit at a desk. rent a trailer and stick them there for 12 months or 24 months. take the difference 

It already has outside door entry access.  

Without having MLS access it's more difficult, but can be done :) I would not go in with numbers based solely on hopeful STR analytics.

They can visit the property, they can get access to the contracts that we use and how we make it a profitable deal.