That has led them to continue to jack up rent prices and often, push out good tenants for the sake of an extra $100/month.

The weather is great there, its cheap and ecology is clean.  

But I am sure they talked about fines and penalties. 

While both involve finding and properly securing a site and bringing it to full entitlement, the ground-up process includes the land piece but gets way more involved and complex to execute.The full "Monty" for ground-up development needs to include financial literacy, an explanation of metrics, and how they work.

I can show you the areas to invest and where to start away from.

What type of transaction fees should I be looking to pay and is there a down payment required?

You are just throwing money away and will eventually fall victim to squatters.

I am thankful for all of the advice I've received on this platform and grateful for this community.

And out run real estate and index funds. 

HI Daniel and welcome to BP.