I would recommend you head to local meetups to get to know folks who are in the specific area of Chicago or the burbs where you want to invest.

More specifically, do you know what investment strategy you want to implement?

If you are confident that this developer can complete the project on time and budget, while also delivering a product (condos) that consumers in this market want, then your big two risks are handled.Now specifically on this deal: Based on the little info you mentioned, these are about $1.5mm condos.  

The trust receives property, money, jewelry and it is a shelter against suits, defers taxes and has a checkbook for most anything but food, fun or fashion.

We had to provide the building inspector with the (Contego) intumescent paint specifications along with our plan for meeting the spec to achieve the 1-hour fire rating (3 layers as I recall). 

I agree with the recommendation of Luckett Land Title (I specifically use the Brandon office most often).

After looking into the question of whether or not to create an LLC for our investment properties, we decided the better option for us was to simply get more liability insurance, specifically an umbrella policy to cover all properties up to a few million dollars. 

I've just developed specific knowledge in this arena.

The three most used “exemptions” are (1) the general exemption for private funding (2) Safe harbor Regulation D (either 504, 505, or 506 B or C),and (3) crowdfunding specific regulations.  

In the past 12 months specifically, $51.9 million worth of multifamily assets sold."