I also tend to agree that in general, the combination of city wage tax and property taxes are outweighed by property taxes in DelCo.

I think the real thing here is that wealthy people tend to understand value better than the average person. 

All of the other stuff like structure, HVAC, rough-in plumbing & rough-in electric, electric panels, roof, etc. ... the major systems that tend to be behind the walls you should sub out as the consequences for doing those wrong can be much more dramatic.

When you get into large balance commercial contracts you tend to have commercial attorneys redlining a word doc with changes back and forth until a final document is ready to execute for a purchase and sale agreement.Your real estate agent/broker and the sellers real estate agent/broker are NOT,NOT experts when it comes to legal language.

interesting for the newbie.it seems, unless its family/friends, private money tends towards HML terms & conditions

I wish I could quickly and accurately determine price points of houses in my area, but I tend to under estimate the value of properties by 100 - 200k.Also your car analogy was spot on; I did so much research on the car I planned to buy, I knew the different price points based on whether it had 18" or 19" wheels, was a hatchback or a sedan, had certain features, etc.

Folks in rural areas tend to prefer to grow their own.

Water tends to warp the wood floors around a leak.  

In other words, buyers tend to only be willing to pay so much in a particular neighborhood before moving on to a different community they think of as superior.

These big companies tend to result in other companies opening satellite offices to do business with them and share in talent sometimes too.