They can’t just do a couple boards - unless they demonstrate you can’t tell the difference, but I doubt that’s possible.

Quote from @Peter Morgan: If the City is giving you warnings and fines, then that demonstrates the complaints are valid.

How you approach the mentor demonstrates how you will approach real estate investing.

You can show them standing next to these features to demonstrate the scale.

I'm thinking of cold-calling you to demonstrate how effective and persuasive I can be by recruiting you to one of my clients!!

I know it's not much to say now, but I can demonstrate over a virtual meeting for you so that you can discover new potential and just be an extra point of contact for you.

By demonstrating the extra level of preparation and commitment, you increase the chances of standing out among competing offers and positioning yourself as a strong and reliable buyer.

Because what's going to happen is they will probably file suit against you in court to retrieve their deposit, and you will have to demonstrate losses in order to keep some/all of the deposit. 

If you build the spec and then rented it out for a while you could demonstrate that your intent was no longer primarily to resell.  

Built good rapport with seller & their property manager to demonstrate desire to ethically operate and maintain the portfolio.