While this person may only be a tire kicker or some of your competition trying to find out about you, the experience of asking your questions and starting to develop a buyers list will pay dividends in the future.

When you have issues you have to tear down in stages carefully which costs more time and money.For lenders existing mixed use developments are more risky to finance and ground up construction is extremely risky.With you not having a track record in commercial much less doing ground up developments I do not see anywhere close to you just putting down 25% unless you partner with a developer that has experience and can back up the loan in case of default with trophy assets.

I was racking my brain trying to come up with a complicated system of profit sharing and no one was really helping me with information about how they structured their payouts until I sat down with a commercial developer.

I hear people talking about new home development costing somewhere between $80-125 sq/ft including dirt - then again, the dirt around here is pretty expensive as well.

The government and many large high-tech companies have programs like this that will enable you to develop your focus.There was a thread here recently I wish I could find for you, where many successful RE investors volunteered their education and formal degrees.

Anybody want to be mentored on developing multi million dollar commercial office buildings?

I spoke on this a while back about a friend of mine who's mother has a house with 3 build able lots (including the original house) that I am helping him wholesale to builders/developers.

My background is in apartment development, but I recently struck out on my own as a sole prop pursuing MHPs in NC.

That is the niche mentality that smaller loan investors need to develop and master.

We're currently renting in Brewerytown Square, the ~6 year old development where the units went up for sale in '06, before the crash.