Quote from @Scott MacComb: I am doing my first true house flip (have remodeled plenty of houses for rental) and am trying to figure out a contract to use with a new general contractor whom I have not worked with previously. 

I have a degree in civil engineering and 15 years construction, site development, and short term rental experience and am looking to shift my focus/career towards real estate development, mainly raw land although if there were a house on the property could include fix and flip.I plan to purchase 50+ acres of raw land with 1000+ feet of road frontage, have it surveyed and split into separate 5+ acre parcels for re-listing.

I started real estate investing by house hacking and then getting into rentals from there.

I am currently house-hacking and will have an empty room.

Mike Lambert above is correct about house values in Japan.

There are not too many people who can pay 40K cash to buy a house.

It's like the 70% rule, you can use it to narrow down 100 deals to 30 deals to dive deeper, but you need to know estimates per house..

Taxes are reasonable (in most areas), and there is a significant lack of quality affordable housing.  

Many successful investors started small, such as with house hacking or buying affordable properties to rent out.

I’m thinking of suing the utility companies for not notifying me of non-payment creating unsafe/ unsanitary situations that led to house fire, thousands in damage.