The risk is in several areas: the syndicate itself and the trustworthiness of the constituent parts - it's hard to feel safe parking all of your capital in a project with people you don't have a relationship with, the structure of the deal logistically and legally- whether you're active or passive like @Michael Ealy pointed out there are still risks: Industry Knowledge: You have little knowledge of the industry and so with the best will in the world you'll have to rely on others to guide you unless you wait until you have educated yourself sufficiently to feel good stepping out into such an exposed position right at the beginningGrowth Prediction: With the best market analysis in the world ( believe me I did it for a long time when I was managing a Management Consultant team predicting for M&As with large portfolios) you can still be wrong-footed - a predicted bridge funding falls at the last hurdle, the new Corporate office planned for the huge new park goes under at the year end etc. whilst Real Estate investment always depends on future predictions the quality of the predictions for a large project are crucial and the timing of the project has a large part to play in the returns you can expect- unless you know your way around what truly drives a city /neighbourhood's growth you could be blind - sided by a greedy developer with form but without due and careful diligence.Construction Error: Once ground has broken the risk increases significantly - you can get into negative equity very quickly - if there's a permit mistake, legal loophole, engineering inaccuracy, fire regs many things can cause the building to be torn down - razing a building to the ground costs a lot of money.These are just some of the issues obviously there are many more and having prior experience and knowledge are very important at this scale.Another point I wanted to mention too is that predicting for appreciation is not the same as predicting for an increase in price so be wary of inflated or misleading price predictions - inflation and it's commensurate effect on value can have a house or apartment complex growing in price but not in value - the value of a property is not the same as it's price -remember that the value of the land is separate from the value of the structure on top of it - structure value ALWAYS depreciates from completion whereas land value normally appreciates so if prices are rising it does not necessarily mean that your structure value is increasing.Hope that helps.

We had issues with the water department on this property and with engineering on some of our design.

I am a full time Engineer living in my buddies basement saving as much money as possible.

Three AC techs later (all confirmed the old unit worked fine) and after much research on my own about the thermostat her engineer brother had installed, figured out that it cut itself off (condenser but not the fan) after running awhile bc engineer brother didn't know how to wire new fangled thermostats and the onboard battery when discharged would issue an emergency cutoff call to the condenser.

However, with active listings in Austin down by 1/3 compared to this time last year, that is a significant deficit to overcome just for the market to get back to last year's inventory levels, which were already extremely low.Here are basic stats on single-family home sales for January 2019 for the City of Austin and the greater Austin area:Lawrence Yun, a chief economist the National Association of REALTORS, added his thoughts: "Austin’s engine of job and population growth is not projected to slow down anytime soon.

I was never really sure what my contribution was going to be, I thought that maybe if I just showed up, I'd find some way to be useful..it was always hard for me to think of a way that my career and education in intel and ocean engineering could somehow contribute in a meaningful way.After Ky passed away, I needed to start looking for a post-ROTC career immediately, and decided that real estate investment was the quickest and most stable way to build up to a livable income for when I come back off active duty.

Although I’m not in your area most places would require a building permit for a lot of that work and possibly even a structural engineer to sign off on the plans.

Then another 1700 to the flood water engineers for the certificates. 

Dwelling Unit Area); however you would not be able to subdivide a 5000 sf lot zoned R1.You will need a civil engineer to prepare a subdivision/tract map to file with city. 

I also have a 6 figure W2 job as an engineer for Boeing with a baby on the way so I'm not quite ready to make real estate my full time job yet, but eventually that is the plan.