I want to lock it up as the seller has been back and forth on price, but I also don't want it to bite me in the butt later due to my haste and inexperience.

Hopefully you won't pay for their inexperience. 

If the realtor was very young, the mistake could be youth and inexperience.

Guess I just didn't realize the cost (let's chalk it up to be inexperience).

My thinking was that if I slow the process down due to inexperience, can I really hold that over the contractor's head.

For example, 1) the degree of the managers fee can vary and has an impact on the IRR (the smaller the fee the higher the IRR, all else being equal); 2) the profit share percentage of the syndication manager is not equal across all deals; 3) investor prefs can boost their IRR; etc.Typically, a newer more inexperience manager will not command a high management fee nor a high profit split percentage. 

Another quick update on my project.... we had to fire our drafter due to his zoning inexperience and lack of work ethics, thankfully the mistake was caught on time, and we were able to hire an architect with much experience and great results.

Maybe it’s just my inexperience too.

Looking for ways to decrease my margins but my inexperience could cost me more than what being my own agent would save me. 

Thus, you'd have to somehow find private money to fund your venture which would come at a ridiculous interest rate to compensate the lender for the risk you're bringing to the table with your inexperience and/or lack of collateral.