I would try not to tie up any of the principal in down payments.Personally, I had a family member do this same thing, but they used an investment portfolio as the collateral instead of real estate.If you play your cards right, this might be the only short-term money you ever need.Please let us know what you end up doing.

looking longterm who knows what's going to happen in the market.The largest thing to be cautious about is that with commercial tenants you as the owner often have to put up money in the form of a check or abated or free rent to help the tenant get open for business and build out the space. 

I lost my money, Hope you don't! 

I ended up doing that in 2021 and found properties that have made me money rather than costing me money every month. 

When I did my research for buying my properties in Costa Rica, I had one of the big STR management companies like Evolve analyze my potential profits and I used that info to raise money through bringing on partners to buy the properties. 

It requires no money upfront, so you will join thousands of others trying to do the same in your market.

.- The system saved us both time and money, allowing us to close more deals.Anyone else tried this?

Save that down payment money you mentioned or go for a multi family at a higher price than the single but have rental income. 

I ending up burning some money for the things you described (NAR membership, brokerage fees, quarterly MLS charges, etc), just a lot of things I found I wasn't getting any value from, I decided to simply put it on full stop and take a year to really reallocate and figure out what I needed to do.

If you are a partial owner of this land, I would not invest much or any money into it.