A lot of housing stock needs to be updated as well as a robust employment environment. 

Even the independent title companies will generally have a relationship with a title company with a national foot.  

The risk is in several areas: the syndicate itself and the trustworthiness of the constituent parts - it's hard to feel safe parking all of your capital in a project with people you don't have a relationship with, the structure of the deal logistically and legally- whether you're active or passive like @Michael Ealy pointed out there are still risks: Industry Knowledge: You have little knowledge of the industry and so with the best will in the world you'll have to rely on others to guide you unless you wait until you have educated yourself sufficiently to feel good stepping out into such an exposed position right at the beginningGrowth Prediction: With the best market analysis in the world ( believe me I did it for a long time when I was managing a Management Consultant team predicting for M&As with large portfolios) you can still be wrong-footed - a predicted bridge funding falls at the last hurdle, the new Corporate office planned for the huge new park goes under at the year end etc. whilst Real Estate investment always depends on future predictions the quality of the predictions for a large project are crucial and the timing of the project has a large part to play in the returns you can expect- unless you know your way around what truly drives a city /neighbourhood's growth you could be blind - sided by a greedy developer with form but without due and careful diligence.Construction Error: Once ground has broken the risk increases significantly - you can get into negative equity very quickly - if there's a permit mistake, legal loophole, engineering inaccuracy, fire regs many things can cause the building to be torn down - razing a building to the ground costs a lot of money.These are just some of the issues obviously there are many more and having prior experience and knowledge are very important at this scale.Another point I wanted to mention too is that predicting for appreciation is not the same as predicting for an increase in price so be wary of inflated or misleading price predictions - inflation and it's commensurate effect on value can have a house or apartment complex growing in price but not in value - the value of a property is not the same as it's price -remember that the value of the land is separate from the value of the structure on top of it - structure value ALWAYS depreciates from completion whereas land value normally appreciates so if prices are rising it does not necessarily mean that your structure value is increasing.Hope that helps.

You may have to use $/square foot, it depends the other factors and similar properties.

The back porch is built on a slab -- unless Superrat can dig under a footed concrete slab and tunnel about 8 feet, and then chew through the cinderblock foundation wall to get into the basement proper, there's no way it can get into the house through the hole she found.

There are still city / residential guide lines that you have to follow and square foot requirements to avoid the fees.

I know I like my investments to be on sound footing so that they're long-term investments; and B) Like Anson said, you could be in some legal hot water if there's a safety issue out there and you haven't been operating within the rules.Hate to be a buzzkill on this.

Im just not sure how you can attack something like this when you need to have a 25% down payment on top of footing the bills for the repairs. 

You probably have most of the experience you need already to at least get your foot in the door on syndication.

My wife and I live in our second property which was a 1500 square foot 2 bedroom (loft as well) and 1.5 bathroom.