I also suggested they resubmit an offer for the land only since it was the only component involving the investor and then recommended they could put down a small deposit so we can move forward separately with designing drafts. 

There are two components, you'll want a RE attorney in the state your property is located for investment and management, structuring.

A Real Estate Investment, done correctly will have components of: Cash-flow, depreciation, equitable gains, market appreciation and forced-appreciation.

You don't really know what you don't know until you are faced with the challenges themselves and a great way to do this is to partner with an experienced investor in your area and do most of the legwork on the deal and have them offer more of a mentorship component. 

The best Real Estate deals that I've done, are the ones that are self-sustainable (cashflow) from day 1 with a value add component.

The component parts of a home and the transactional costs themselves are always going up.... 

Key components you need to make this strategy best work is "Path Of Progress" investing.

Consider environmental problems.

@Vicky S.On the partner protection side; you have them sign a NDA with a non-compete component.

The only question is right after you move out, in those 3 years, do you think the house will appreciate where the capital gain component is >15% (not the whole house, but just the capital gain component).