We'll probably call the city tomorrow to see what their answer is and determine best course of action. 

Again, the lender is going to be a big factor in determining what you can do within the limits of the local law.

Pricing your unit at or just below market rents will get you your pick of tenants. 

lots of rabbit holes out there and what I call due diligence pump and dump scammers.. prey on mid level developers who have never gotten one of these loans.the borrower falls for the 5 to 20k up front fee to perform so called due diligence and the so called lender never closes.I have seen colleagues of mine blow through 100k looking for CHEAP money when they should have just under stood this kind of money in the Private equity world goes out at 10 to 15% apr period unless you have a local bank that will do it like I do. but even then its one project at a time and uber cautious.. they don't want to go back to the bad ole days were they ended up owning pipe farms.. and they generally will only do these with who they determine are their top tier clients.. you cannot in our market be unknown to the bank.. unless your have that monster balance sheet.but in my mind Socal is ground zero for this kind of money.. 

To determine that ARV, you will probably need a real estate agent in the beginning and then learn how to pull your comps (Zillow, redfin, realtor dot com and other websites). 4.

It's even better if you have a standardized list of finishes picked out, this will save you a ton of time. 

That is a misconception esspically when considering seniours and retirement communities..The owners standards will ultimately determine the quality of the community.   

I'm looking to pick up a couple more rentals there this year as well.

All of these determine the premium, in addition to other factors like the Construction, Occupancy, Protection and other Exposures.  

I picked up one or 2 nice items that I added.