I want to be somewhat hands on so I would pick markets that are driveable for you and visit frequently. 

Although not everyone, they pick and choose who they charge what to.

This will show you that people have options to go out and pick another house over your place. 

I highly recommend attending real estate networking events to meet more people is this space and pick their brain and learn more from their projects and see what is working and what is not.

If you pick a good lender, they will have done a lot of deals and be able to have a rough sense if your construction costs are on par for the project. 

I'm in the processes of picking up a 20-pack of studio's around the same threshold.

Unless you're partying in Hawaii and picking real estate without doing any due diligence at all.

So I added the double grounds.Sometimes you have to pick your battles.  

Under that, it gets very tough.If you plan on retaining/keeping any of the properties you pick up (whether using hard money or otherwise), I strongly recommend you start working with a lender now to see what can be done about your credit.

And ask if interested in picking up more, because as you said your looking to do more so if there looking you'd love to help keep any eye out for what there looking for.