Even if I was the senior lender for one of the new developments, in a downside scenario I wouldn't know what to do with the land / the half-finished or finished (but unsale-able for whatever reason) inventory.Therefore - I don't want to invest / make a loan in the development JV itself - I would rather make a loan at the parent-co level where there is collateral in the form of completed properties that are generating rental cash flow - they do have mortgages on them. 

They are more difficult to finance than a single family or multi-family project and have a number of building code requirements that add cost and many smaller GC's who you likely will be reliant on aren't familiar with these requirements.

Here is a great example why.I recently saw this asset come across my desk which was a non performing loan where the seller was a year behind (they made one payment I believe - even though they were allegedly properly underwritten).

So, I do not see the value or even the reason behind why you want to do this. 2.

But I would first start on something even smaller.

Fortunately, the claim was over $1M so there was enough money to pay for the roof even if it was not explicitly covered. 

Lots of stuff happens during a sale and if you are going to have rentals, be prepared for even more problems.

Even back then there were a lot of high rise hotels where you could get a decent condo-style room with hot water, cable tv etc for really cheap ($15-20USD/night).

@Michael FradettePrivate or hard money 2nd position loan.Also realize most lenders will not go above 75% cltv so you will need to have a significant amount of equity That is if you can even find a lender to do a 2nd

.), fail to execute contracts with vendors, use uninsured and unlicensed vendors, fail to be added as additional insured (likely don't even know the difference between being a certificate holder and being added as additional insured).