These homes traditionally rent in the 300-400/mo and sell for 30-40K a bedroom usually.What I call the fringe area - is where I think the highest risk is.

Success is a process, failure is a choice

To avoid a large DP with traditional financing, would hard money be my best bet to get started? 

Your personal career choice and the business of being a landlord will be in direct conflict.

OK, all kidding aside, there is a very real difference between a Traditional Real Estate Agent (TREA for short) and an Investor Friendly Real Estate Agent (IFREA for short).

But, for the time being I'll be doing more traditional statistical analyses, albeit with an emphasis on the Bayesian.

So since it was less than 50% of our total joint assets it was an easy choice for me to just keep that as 'part of my half'.One interesting side note; do your own homework in ADDITION to seeking professional help.

I have been doing things the traditional way by finding a property, going to look at it 3 days later when I get off work, and then putting in an offer a day latter.

Success is a process, failure is a choice

Most banks (if they even do construction loans), will require a 700+ credit score and 20% down on the hard costs of land acquisition + construction.Here is what I'm thinking:1) Get a pre-approval for my customers for a traditional loan2) Get some sort of equity down from the customer (cash or land) so they've got skin in the game3) Do an appraisal on the after construction value of their home4) Assuming the numbers work out and we're covered in the event that the original customer can't close, build their home for them with us fronting the money5) Sell them the home at completionI have two questions for you all:1) Do you think a hard money or private lender would be interested in this, assuming I'm offering 12% interest on their money for the 3-4 month build time2) Do you see any legal problems with taking money from the customer and then selling the property to someone else if the customer screws their credit up during the build and is unable to close?