It is clear that the presence of all of these factors would compel the conclusion that a sale has occurred; moreover, since a single factor is not controlling, the absence of any of them would not compel the conclusion that a sale had not occurred.

Until then, you as the developer control the property.Getting sales going is the barrier.  

If they have Care Custody and Control of your property, but no insurance, you could open yourself up to range of claims that are not coverered on your Lanlord policy, such as Work Comp and Discrimination claims. 

Another benefit of being an owner occupant is the building is no longer subject to rent control.

Search for something that is not in a rent control area and with rents below market.It won't be easy to find the deals, but there are some out there from time to time.

Contractors seem to like to choose which jobs they tackle on their time line and according to how they feel.By you segmenting the job you control which items get done first and you can monitor the craftsmanship and attention to detail of the work completed.You learn which contractors to use where in the future. 

Series work well for larger commercial investors where each series controls one multi-million dollar investment so the scale of the investor's operation supports the ongoing administrative expense of maintaining a series LLC, but the same is not true for the smaller investor.  

How much control do you have in the deal, or do you want any?

(No I'm not pitching myself.)This is likely more involved than a turnkey but also gives more control and more margin.

Once all is said and done, we are projecting higher rents for those areas pushing bad tenants out and giving landlords more control.