Whats to stop a developer/sponsor from selling the property to himself or another entity controlled by him, at a loss or at break even price?

As for the professional service fees, those appear to be in line with what our development side pays for the design fees of a project.

Our lawyer is concerned the developer may turn out to be a shell corporation that they will close once the house is sold so we have no recourse against them if anything goes wrong.Is it common to require this clause in the contract?

There is a lot of development going on right now, with new condos and luxury student housing.

On one hand, if you want to manage a project such as a flip, you'd probably want to be nearby so you can be there to manage - at least until you've developed enough solid relationships with contractors and such.But, if you want to do turnkeys, you probably won't be able to finance anything in So Cal that would cash flow.

I've expanded my consideration to certain areas of Texas, but I'm focused right now on developing my long term strategy.

I understand that there are big plans for developing the waterfront area  in Vancouver to connect with the downtown area.

Being a website developer, I think the BP website has some issues that needs to be addressed.  

When my youngest, Michael, that's now 27 was little we ran our construction/real estate development office at our house. 

Having said all that, I have since developed a relationship with a commercial lender that I game plan with before I purchase into a situation like this.