Construction workers, and investors, can change on the drop of a dime depending on their financial position.

This is a totla gut with about a year long construction time

My opinion is that you don't bet against yourself.

You can bet that all the sovereign wealth funds that are making investments in these companies are making a return.

Now the way people throw around the world billion, $50 billion sounds like milk money.I bet with the inflation our country is going to go through after this bailout, you will actually need close to that for milk.

I had a meeting yesterday with the builders and they are trying to renegotiate their construction loan.

You're not collecting the rent, but still have all the expenses (well, hopefully you don't have to evict yourself, I wouldn't make any bets about your friends)You will never be able to get a loan in an entity without a personal guarantee.

I have met a mentor, Kenneth, who has been a general contractors for 16 (ish) years in San Francisco area... and involved in construction work for over 20 more years...

Getting investor loans done with conventional lenders is tough and will get tougher.Local indy banks as you say are a great alternative. they are called portfolio lenders and they can help because they do not sell their loans to Freddie and Fannie.These small banks and credit unions don't work with brokers so brokers are not your best bet here.If you go to my blog (in my sig) there's a link there to my Portfolio Loan Blueprint that will help.

I would say they are on an assumed month to month tenancyif they are more than one month late in my county that counts as constructive notice and you can just go ahead and file a detainer warrant for evictioni'm sure the laws are different in commiefornia