I've dumped all my market-based investments for real estate and real estate lending for the following reasons:1) Control - I'm in charge, not some crook on Wall St.2) Stress - market volatility has no direct impact on me.3) Leverage - can get more more on RE4) tax advantages - where else can you depreciate an appreciating asset5) cash flowI'm not missing the stock market one bit!

Before retiring, I was managing ~250 people at three manufacturing facilities and if one of my employees was taking calls during work hours and I felt it was negatively impacting his or her work, it is highly likely that I would discipline that employee and eventually terminate them if the behavior continued.

The items I listed above are a subset of many that may impact building for your intended use.  

One of the things the city is allowing is to defer up to half of permit and impact fees till final inspection, so at least if I will save some up front money. 

Just a side note: Using these services may not be as helpful to your tenants as you may have hoped, if you dig deeper in to the details from each Credit Reporting Agency you can see where rental payments will have no impact on the scores most lenders use in credit granting decisions, for example; Experians offering results in a tradeline that impacts Vantage scores or Experians own Plus Score, neither of which are used by.....well anybody for credit approvals.

Great thing about a job like this is that the failures or successes of others do not have much impact on your failures or successes.

That said, we recently rehabbed an excellent property in Summerlin (one of the best areas in Las Vegas) with tile floors, paint and some landscaping and the total was approximately $9,000.Ongoing MaintenanceMaintenance costs can have a major impact on profitability.

We pinched every penny and tried to put the money where it would have the most impact on the overall value of the property.  

My builder is doing new construction at 80/ft on medium-high end quality (~400k homes), plus impact fees/permits.

This would certainly have an impact on my cashflow.