I'm trying to find something more durable than carpet (seems to only last a few years) and am turned off by pricing on vinyl plank.

I still have one of my two apartment vacant but the neighborhood that I am in probably has more to do with that than the Pm company. 

One flip I did, I priced with the comps but they were about 4 months old and the market had already went down so the home ended up sitting for a lot longer than I would have liked.

If you're using hard money simply for the purchase and plan to refinance, the hard money would actually require less than long term financing.

We know that a dual fuel system would be more optimal, but the cost of running a gas line and venting is likely higher than adding another circuit for the heat strip.Furthermore, we are looking for recommendations for an HVAC installer in Chicago.

Some items to be aware of include, but not limited to:  zoning in County may conflict with the City, utilities that belong to the City infrastructure may require that you annex the property prior to rezoning or other entitlement, County development standards may be different or less stringent than City standards which would cause the development to be non-compliant when annexed.I would echo the same as Bryant Brislin, you will definitely want to connect with someone that can navigate this process for you. 

(Also, the developer is reasonably experienced + wealthy and has personally guaranteed some of the existing development projects - but wants to move away from that)I'm also planning to get some equity in the JV / the broader development company (much less equity than if I were to be a pure equity investor of course). because I do think this could scale to 300-400 homes / yearOf note: These homes are modular in nature - so are faster to build and margins are projected to be attractive.My questions for you all is:Have any of you lent to development assets with cross-collateral from cashflowing properties like this?

You can open an LLC in any state and, as you pointed out, some states have much lower costs for formation than others.

I'm confident that, with the community's input, the show will be better than ever. 

There are more than one way to skin it.