Quote from @Stuart Udis: Not creative, but good real estate and traditional financing is almost always better than incredible seller financing terms and lousy real estate.

I will get a lot of fun out of it, plus make money now and off their future efforts which I will not be involved with, other than as a Passive recipient.Cost- if you did traditional logging and sawmilling operations, you would need about $3,000,000 of equipment on the cheap to start out. 

@David ShirtsIn my experience, seller financing can be a game-changer, especially for properties with clear titles or when traditional loans aren't an option.

Obviously this is California spec building and not the traditional RE stuff I come to this website to read about :)I should not have said same as main house.

@Raj VardhanI agree with @Evan Polaski regarding the 6-Month Seasoning Rule: Most traditional lenders require a 6-month holding period before you can do a cash-out refinance.

In addition, high cost RE markets traditional have greater rent growth than low cost RE markets.  

This includes, water, hot water, heat, air conditioning, cable, security system, snow removal, lawn care.

Traditionally I have sold the builder land and loaned him the money to buy the land and build the house with us splitting up the profits when it sold. 

I have had people work for me for years under this concept and with some very few minor disagreements it has worked out very well, the money saved allowed us to do 3x the work than if we had gone the traditional route.

That said, I completely understand your concern about deals looking "too good to be true" when you’re putting in 50% down.To avoid this, it’s best to analyze properties as if you were using more traditional financing (20-25% down).