You likely only made a down payment of 3-20% ....but you still get to write it off on the full value across 27.5 years.So 400k/27.5 = 14,000 ish a year of a write off where during the year you didn't need to incur an actual expense, no cash outflow. 

Lastly, land development requires solid planning and capital, so getting the right development loan with flexible terms will be vital for success.

I want to prepare my home for renting, and my plans are to buy a motor home to live in for the time being.

@Jeffrey Bourque Are you planning to finance this with a local bank or credit union?

Originally posted by @Travis Lemley:They will most likely vary significantly with flips being more expensive. 

What is the long term plan for the city and the state?

My father is the trustee and sole beneficiary, and plans to will the house to my wife sister and her.We want to take out a HELOC on the house to invest in real estate (we currently have two properties and are planning to scale up).

Once you go above $125k/unit you start to get into the high end areas that won't have very good rent/price ratios and are under the 1% rule mark for turnkey stuff.Neighborhood wise in the city the "East End" is where the most expensive real estate is since that's where the universities and a lot of the hospitals are located.

They just put a new roof on, so that's one large expense I can budget less for early on.

With the exception of building a trailer on the property (these are hard to finance), this sounds like a good plan AND if you are using it for your business AND your business pays more than 50% of the rent (if you have more than 1 tenant), then this is a more financeable property in the eyes of banks and credit unions as it would be consider a commercial "owner-occupied" property.