Maybe a slightly lower paper return, but a lot less risk

Interest rate is your reflection of risk (risk = the probability that the return to the lender is something other than what is bargained for).  

But still lets you take advantage of the roi scale of leverage (and risk) with the other properties.

Ground up has the most risk and the longest to turn around.

Looking at a condo where the HOA only allows one lease per year.  Meaning if my tenant doesn't pay, leaves, breaks the lease, etc. I cannot rent it out until the one year anniversary is up.  I generally figure a 10% v...

These are relatively low cost but can be high risk and cash only purchases. 

and to understand how they fit together in your toolbox, as none will give you everything (e.g, insurance is required and it will cover you for many situations, but not always; asset protection (LLC) is litigation insurance and complements regular insurance, by minimizing the target and making it unappealing).If you are a new investor, probably you will not have a lot of assets and/or equity to worry about (but even that is relative and subjective to each person tolerance to risk) so I would not worry about that till you pass that risk threshold (in my opinion 100K+ in equity, maybe 50K if you are really risk adverse) and you should be primarily concerned with finding good deals and growing your business first.

Cash investors have perceived low risk and higher profits.

Higher risk, higher rate.

If you want to do this on your own.. then its a lot of leg work at the county or city and your going to take some pretty heavy duty risks.