@William Hardie: Check out the Efficiency Maine website for info about heat pump performance in Maine.

I am unable to efficiently meter them because of the cost involved. 

Efficiency is good and the more efficient operators have thinner margins.

Plus I need an energy audit and structural engineer to design the foundation (per the city.)

As an active real estate investor I can tell you it’s going to be hard to make $300k a year and not divert time and energy away from your day job.

@Joel Owens thanks for the advice. flip is unsecured. this is in the single digit percentage of net worth, so I haven't put as much energy towards this, but still needing to come to a conclusion. 

Portfolio loan via a single LLC is your most cost efficient manner.

@Scott PassmanIf the point is that you don't need to do courses in REI to make money in it, sure.If the point is that college is really not the best place for types that can handle self-education, sure. even Elon Musk has repeatedly gone on the record to insist that he's a better rocket scientist for having two BS degrees in economics and physics and then dropping out of a PhD in energy physics, and a lot of people he's hired agree.But the reality as I saw it in my former profession as a teacher is that most people suck at self-education, suck at a nuts-and-bolts level on the tools of autonomous learning, research and analysis, suck in general at doing anything when someone isn't there holding their hand for them and patting them on the back every day.

I've never been to such a quick and efficient closing; I barely had time to drink the coffee they made me.

The land would have to be a sweetheart deal, IMO and you'd have to know that the pain, time and energy you're going to expend would be relatively equal to co-investing in a larger play or bringing together other investors to do a larger value-add or development.