Having a P/C license sure help with the whole process--as an expert in insurance industry is one thing I'm not worry about when insuring a project. 

I know this is a guide for HUD subsidized housing including (primarily) Section 8 Project-Based Assistance.

Lot rents at $250 and running at a 40% expense ratio produces only $16k/year net  Is it worth it for the massive amount of work this place will require?

, but in the long run when many of those people with massive labor paid mortgages and multiple labor paid car payments are working blindly forever to pay are looking at you saying "oh he must have gotten lucky somehow", youll know the real reason, that you sacrificed the shiny stuff and made your money work for you.  

Just last week an alumni stopped by who is working on a 80 million dollar international real estate development project of his own where he got funding through investment firms.

Can I pay myself a salary throughout the project so that I don't have to go 3 - 6 months without receiving any income? 

Maybe if you have a massive income that you need tax writeoffs for, or something along the lines of that, then perhaps you might want to set a deadline to buy something within the next 90 days.Also, have you built before?

However based on the photos I have seen, there are minimal repairs necessary for the property, and as result I do not know if my end buyer will be able to use hard money financing for the project.

I do agree that for all parties a fixed price estimate is best (you need to know how to estimate properly).To be successful as a GC, things like getting a large deposit, making sure you are always staying ahead on billing and are spending clients money and not your own, marking up all costs at least 20% to cover OH&P, billing appropriately for change orders, not to mention staying up to date on latest building methods and continuing education, are the minimum requirements to last in this business.Of course you have to keep construction costs as low as possible when you are rehabbing a real estate project.  

We are projected to have 18,000 people move here from the Bay Area next year.