We are experienced and have never involved anyone in our projects and have never used a loan outside of a conventional mortgage.

Don't confuse the two.You're 19, good for you to getting involved but keep it trim.

While both involve finding and properly securing a site and bringing it to full entitlement, the ground-up process includes the land piece but gets way more involved and complex to execute.The full "Monty" for ground-up development needs to include financial literacy, an explanation of metrics, and how they work.

The easiest of all the thing I've been involved in.

I am starting to get involved with real estate investing, but I am only a college student, so I do not have the income to place a 20% down payment for most properties.

This will allow you to get the sheriff involved immediately.If you are already past the notice period then you will probably have to follow whatever state laws are in place for the notification period and possibly the eviction process.

If you want to build equity quickly, some level of hands-on involvement is key.

From day one I treated my involvement in real estate as a real business.This means, I had an advertising budget, a lead generating and follow up process, a back end process and money source and above all an experienced mentor.  

Find Brandon's videos on YouTube for the "four square" method of analyzing homes and practice.

What other kinds of loans or financing strategies are available that don't involve using too much of your own cash?