I already had all the team in place from other projects (architecture, civil, structural, soils, geology, survey, historical) ... we've been at it for 9 months and we haven't even submitted final construction docs.That's one anecdotal example, but the pattern is clear - whether it's CEQA or Historical or riparian habitat or community plan or setbacks or parking or mixed use bonus that hits the FAR ceiling or phantom floors or utility undergrounding, there's just a lot to understand if you're trying to build anything more than a duplex on a single property within City limits.I only have development experience in SD City limits ... curious if anyone has experience doing this in surrounding jurisdictions (La Mesa?  

Construction and investing experience affects the terms as well.Initially the startup cost would be; secure the land lot, get arch & structural plans completed, professional services ie survey, soil test, elevation certificate, RESCheck (Energy Compliance Report), building permit, Impact fees, Clear lot, Pour foundation and go into framing.So you would need your own cash to get started.

So lets brake down HM with an Example: (we have our numbers of ... )PP 50Rehab 30ARV 110Interest .13%Pts .041st) Calculate Down PMT:                                 ______HAVE__ |__NEED_______Loan .65%(LTV) X ARV 110 = 71,500 | PP 50                                                      | Rehab 30                                                      | CC 3                                                      | Pts .04 X Loan 71,500 = 2,860                                                      | Ins 600                                                      | Survey 383                                                      | Mis+Fees 1,000                                 ------------------------------------                                         71,500   |   87,843NEED - HAVE = Est Down PMT87,843 - 71,500 = 16,343 2nd)        Cash_________________ VS___________________ HM:CASH                                  |                          Hard MoneySOLD 110                            | SOLD 110PP 50                                  |  Loan 71,500                 Rehab 30                             | Interest .13% X Loan 71,500=9,295/12=774X4mo's=3,098CC 3                                    | REcom 6.6REcom .06% of ARV = 6.6    | Down PMT 16,190------------------------------------------------------------------------PROFIT   20,400                   |  12,612Difference:CASH - HM = Savings20,400 - 12,612 = 7,788Profit Margins:Cash                                              |    Hard Money20,400 / 83,000[PP+Rehab+CC]        |     12,612 / 16,190 DownPMT= 24%                                            |      = 77%                                                      |So you can buy 1 house and get        |    Or you can Buy 110/16,190=6.7 so 6 houses20,4000                                          |    6 X 12,612 = 75,672                                                      |This is just an example JUST an EXAMPLE 

Survey or Letter Approach4.

Is there any reason to get a land survey done before putting it on the market?

Survey the terrain.  

My script is available by the link below so you can play with it and present data as you want.I used data sets* https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/datasets/2010-2020/cities/SUB-EST2020_25.csv* https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/datasets/2020-2022/cities/totals/sub-est2022_25.csvThis is a link to my notebook* https://colab.research.google....Data 2010 - 2020I filtered out MA cities with small populations and left only cities having populations larger than 80k in 2012.

A few ideas I had to lessen the effect this phenomenon has are to use block level data or to utilize untabulated records about individual people or housing units that the American Community Survey collects.The issues with both these approaches are that block data is only issued by the conventional census, which will reduce your temporal resolution from 1 year to 10.

I should be getting my Topographic Survey by the end of the day today.

Get a survey done.If you're trying to nitpick the deal, get the following from seller (if mom and pop they probably won't have many of the following):Tax return for the propertyBank account showing rents being receivedIf tenant managed through software by seller, ask for maintenance logs going back a year.Lots more to a deal.