It’s a heavy tourism area with year round demand and tight restrictions on STRs that keep room rates high.  

Had a few meetings with a representative and everything, which went great.

But bottom line is you hired an individual for a service and they are not meeting your needs.

Personally, even with interest rate uncertainty and election year hysteria, I am building a stronger and stronger conviction around the fact that I need to get a little more aggressive in acquiring more income properties.   

It is a 4 unit home with a decent cap rate (7%) in comparison to where I am looking.

Consider the time, effort, and expense to develop a concept plan to include site drawings, home types, homes per acre, site storm water retention plan, tree save areas, conservation areas, wetland setbacks, time considerations for meetings with county land use planners, negotiating easements for utilities, rezoning meetings with county council, revisions to your plans to meet demands of neighbors, planners and/or county council, and hopefully getting a final approval for your project.

Lender paid compensation is when the rate goes up on the loan to pay the lender for the so it might take a 8.125% base rate to 8.375%.

To secure the construction loan for the duplex, I would use the entire property as collateral to meet the down payment requirements.Does this sound like a good strategy?

I would like to meet and work with some investors that do fix and flip and buy and hold to get some investments in the pipeline while working on the land development deals. 

You hardly build any equity in your first year, it makes sense to refi only if the rate is substantially lower or if you can get rid of mortgage insurance.