From the leadership perspective, I have had a lot of experience in my corporate career where I was a operations manager and managed about $100 million yearly spending, a $300 million production unit, 135 employees with 10 of them being salary.

Is it better from a tax perspective to pay him or give rent credit for work done?  

I'm going to offer a different perspective here.

Definitely interesting topic to gain perspective! 

I would love any thoughts on: approach/philosophy of investing in NE Ohio; perspectives on where the market is headed in Cleveland (from research it appears like a stable area that could even appreciate with systemic impacts of COVID); areas to consider moving forward.Thanks so much! 

I have several deals going exactly like this right now, and bet there's millions of these done with other investors around the country.You might want to take some investing courses to broaden your perspective.

The deal definitely works purely from a numbers perspective, but having never subdivided land I feel my formula could be missing certain metrics associated with the subdivision process.

Help me out from the sellers perspective.Say the seller understands and agrees to concept knowing it stays on their credit.What, from the sellers perspective, protects them if I don’t pay?

We made some updates into each unit, mostly cosmetic upgrades (fresh paint, new fixtures, repair doorbell, change bathroom vents, new door locks, new gutters, HVAC replace, etc), and live in one while renting out the others.

To offer some overall market perspective from what I am seeing in the area, and the little I know about some of your properties from seeing them listed on the MLS... this was a C/D class portfolio that I would consider high risk.