That will give you a better idea of how to improve (not over-improve) a property you are thinking of purchasing.Speaking of purchasing, you can't purchase comfortably without knowing all of your costs and being able to analyze a deal.

This is in downtown Berkeley where there's practically never an empty rental.

total waste of your time and effort... only way to work on this is if you have significant equity.you wont get the bank to lower their fee's no way..but if you want to fool with it for practice or just because it could be a good learning experience for you  to realize you cant work with these sitautions this late in the game unless your going to stroke a check ..

We already owned the land so the improvements cost about $200k (site prep, building the covered storage, etc)So...

Is that common practice anywhere... or just something that was slipped in.  

There may be more than 100 people at the meeting, but they have trouble with retention, so about 25% to 35% in attendance is usually 1st time visitors or investor wannabees, another 25% to 35% are vendors wanting to sell something to the investors, and the rest are practiced investors that come to learn and share.  

Since the property is in the family is it possible to do seller financing and still get a 203k loan for the improvements?

The ground lease will usually spell out site improvements the tenant wants and connections.Best thing usually is to connect with a local commercial attorney familiar with development to get your questions answered.You try to limit up front costs but even then you can spend tens of thousands on some deals that do not work.  

In your description of the home you can put all of the improvements you are going to be making, and you can use representational photos as long as you label them as such.

Cap Imp vs Repair Expense IRSI'm in the middle of doing some 2017 tax crunching last minute so of course I am on Bigger Pockets forum instead of finishing up my taxes :-)Anyways here's a useful tip on Cap Improvement vs Repair ExpensesMy strategy has always been to increase regular maintenance, repairs (Repair Costs) and spread out costs over time instead of the hands off approach to defer maintenance into larger Capital Improvement expenses.