The website is clunky and not user friendly at all, but if you tinker with it and figure it out, there is a wealth of free information for doing environmental due diligence on properties there. 

Population is way too high for our resource and environmental load, calamity frequency is only increasing. 

For example, let's say 3 months after you draw up your option, you learn that there is an old, covered environmental waste disposal site 100 feet from your property line that is causing cancer in tenants. 

What some developers do is get a bridge loan to stabilization and do a cash out re fi when leased up.You also should look into previous uses of the site to make sure no environmental issues exist.

You are not paying realtor fees and unless you do an environmental study I would suspect you would be 1/4 to 1/3 of that cost.  

We were able to clear the environmental risk to get the deal done.

and paying exhorbitant (sp) salaries (2 million to the CEO).By the way -- cheesecake factory is never an anchor tenant -- physical footprint is too small.I just want Heather to admit that if non-paying tenant humans are thieves (her word was shoplifters), then non-paying tenant corporations are thieves, too.

The groundwater and soil turn out to be ok with some contaminants but all well within limits of the environmental screening levels.

Most title companies do not cover environmental no matter what you do.

@Ryan Evans just thought of a few other biggies:Definitely get an environmental inspection done as well (often called Phase I Site Assessment).