This area is in central Florida and the development over the past 5 years has been tremendous, both with home and job growth.

It would be a short term loan, maybe a year term, with 20% down making interest only payments with a balloon payment at the end when he gets a commercial loan to continue with his land development plans.

Develop some kind of outsized persona.Sophisticated family offices, institutions, and high net worth investors do not invest with sponsors based on their being boisterous, braggadocios, and having out-sized personas. 

This can be developed with intentional focus and consistent application.

What would you do...The house is located in an excellent neighborhood, huge development recently took place across the road.

I second that, I'd develop relationships in the area so that you'd have 'boots on the ground'.

This is called affordable housing or variant of... and it's used by developers mostly to either get approval for things or tax breaks.

How do you become, as a starting-out developer, a public sector housing developer?

How do you finance/fund a real estate development, say a boutique residential 10-story condo?

Can you as a small, starting-out developer, partner up with an architect firm, construction firm, and the rest of people needed to make a project?