The contract deposit is negotiable and is usually 5-10% of the proposed purchase price.The most important thing here is that the deal makes sense AND the owner is willing to go into contract with you.

I suggest reading the legislation for your own knowledge.

People have all kinds of proposed work arounds, but that's good until it is time to sell or the government decides to crack down and they do now and then. 

To facilitate an informed decision regarding my suitability for the role, I would like to propose starting with a trial period which would allow you to evaluate my performance and see firsthand how effectively I manage properties remotely.Thank You.

Here are 2 links that breaks down the legislation a little more plainly. https://www.nj.gov/dca/divisio...https://www.nj.gov/dca/divisio....To address some of your questions @Mark F. - I will only answer what we definitively know within our organization, I cannot speak on behalf of the state or nonprofit behind this new legislation. 

My advise is to start with single family or a small multi-family ground up project first but this market environment is truthfully not the time to be completing any ground up projects unless you are self performing the construction which it doesn't appear you are in a position to do.There was a recent Philadelphia  forum chain started by someone else who was contemplating ground up in a similar fashion to what you are proposing and I cautioned they would be better off buying something that was newly built and believe after conducting their own diligence realized it was too cost prohibitive at this time to build with 3rd party GC's in Philadelphia when also accounting for the interest rate environment and cost to build.

Having seen earlier proposals for Boston ordinances it seems a pretty reasonable compromise proposal to allow residents to offset Boston’s sky high prices by renting out all or part of their homes, while preventing non-local investors from further removing already limited housing supply (the ultimate fear of all housing departments).

Quote from @Michael Smythe: @Zehua Zhou usually, your 401k will lend funds to your LLC.In that case, you would give a PMC the LLC EIN.You really should get advice from a tax professional.Michael, what you are proposing is a "prohibited transaction" defined by the IRS. 401k would be prohibited from lending funds to the account owner's LLC.  

Then, find the 2-4 people you resonate with the most and make them specific proposals.

Purchase price: $279,000 Cash invested: $45,000 Sale price: $425,000 Off-market property I found, contacted the sellers and proposed a cash offer of $279K "as is" (suggesting we would clean out the entire property & dispose of whatever the sellers didn't want.).