a lender need to make 4 to 5k per file to keep the doors open.. either through junk fees and or points and junk fee's  the interest normally goes to the investor not the lender.. there maybe a little delta on the interest but not much .. 

.$10k/year in negative cash flow verses your appreciation....your gamble and your call.

Is the 6-12 month closing time normal for these kinds of large land deals?

What that means is that normally once your holding period has passed a year all the gain from that property or subsequent properties is generally treated as capital gain. 

Stanley's daughter came out with a new book this month updating the research -- I haven't read it yet.Stanley identified several factors that keep you rich or poor: where you live, how much you spend on the house you line in, how much you spend on luxuries, how much debt you pay interest on, but I believe his most important finding is that a much higher percentage of millionaire men than normal will report on a survey that their spouse is more frugal than they are.Getting rich turns out to be very much a team sport, specifically, a team of two.

I would advise keeping everything in the conservative/normal range when flipping a mid level.

The money you "save" will probably not be significant when you take into consideration the amount of work that you will have to do that a realtor normally coordinates. 

I may have an opportunity to attain a commercial pilot's licence at a fraction of the normal cost (It would still cost me everything I've saved) by learning from a friend in Texas.

Then things go back to normal.

Their core business is setting up systems to handle the things that banks normally do.