They're hard to find, but they're in and out of the county building checking on land to build.

How do I find a company who wants to do the operations side?

not saying you do. just hard to find good honest contractors

Is the Only Way to Negotiate a Lower Price with Builders is to have a pain in the butt inspector find a laundry list of problems and meaningless in the grand scheme defects to compel them to cut their numbers to move to acceptance and closing?

here's what may be the best advice you can get on a project like this ... find the Best Roofer in your area to help with this!!!

If you're priced out of your current market, I would definitely look into other markets where you can find great macroeconomics, positive cash flow, and amazing appreciation potential.

Really trying to find out the pros and cons.

I'd also find out when they get paid, so the payments are done within 2 days of them getting their paycheck.

Very common to be a 20 to 40 mile dirt road one way and then you basically needed to be VERY good with maps to even find them.. this was Pre google earth or GPS..

The, around 5%, rate is currently lower than what you'd likely find now (rates are just starting to dip back into the 5's for investment properties), but I don't think that keeping your rate here should impact your decision.