My question is does the bank only have control of the property and the "owner" still holds title?

You can use a custodial account or if you wish to have more control special purpose LLC can be utilized to gain checkbook control and minimize custodian fees and eliminate their involvement in the investment. 

Mike Where I have rentals deposits are controlled by local laws.  

Could this be the explanation for why 10% of the people control 70%+ of the wealth?  

Currently I have around 15k set aside for this venture of mine.

There's always someone out there looking to put a fund together to tackle larger real estate ventures, perhaps try to find some of them at a local meetup or on BP?

We use in house handymen to control quality and cost and its not unusual.

We use in house handymen to control quality and cost and its not unusual.

For a variety of different reasons, it is expensive and cumbersome to develop in L.A. and this can be largely blamed on the fact that starting in the 1960's, much of the control over the building and planning process was delegated to individual communities.So, why isn't the state building like we used to?

My intention is to control the property to allow my architect to create the drawings/plans/proformas for  the highest & best use of the emerging neighborhood...