Has anyone saved money and closed with one of these new upstarts?

It's a more involved discussion that requires one on one communication and no, joining a "community" does not prepare you.

If it is only one flip for now, I suggest you find a CPA just to advise you on State filing requirements, ensure you are claiming all write-offs and issuing 1099s, etc.

The number one mistake that I saw buyers making was jumping right into negotiating (and not very good negotiating at that) without first spending the time to build rapport.

However, I received some feedback from one of my partners that the play here would be for an investor to subdivide or re plat the land for a multiple tenant situation.

Imagine making millions of dollars over the course of your career and then having to pay 30-50% every year to uncle sam instead of compounding that cash over time.This is exactly what real estate professionals have learned to mitigate.To reduce their taxable income, they just buy a building every year, do a cost seg, and use depreciation to reduce their tax liability dramatically.Their personal wealth snowball grows much larger and much faster than their W2 counterparts who give most of their money back to the government each year.Following this strategy as a real estate professional is one of best ways to end up with a much larger net worth at the end of your career.

One of the topics was him developing 5 acres in town near the golf course.  

The one's I prefer handle everything in house, from purchasing the home, renovating it, renting it, then selling to an investor then managing for them on the back end.

Right now the two units I have share one.

Not one of those jobs takes an hour.