But I can't imagine how it pencils out if you're an amateur one-time developer.  

I imagine that is something you would want to do yourself.

I am intrigued, coming from the West coast, I just can't relate to those numbers; we here imagine anything in Detroit would have bullet holes or meth labs.

My confidence in his work is, as you might imagine, very low at this point.  

Imagine it would cost quite a bit to convert all those units to have their own bathroom.

Our realtor ran comps in the area today including all our renovations and his estimate came in at $785k, which is significantly higher than anything we ever imagined.

The positives in his analysis, is that since the pouring of California residents and retirees in the AZ market, it seems lot of people are bullish on AZ (especially Phoenix), so as long as the demand keeps going up, he can buy the property relatively cheaper.Has anyone done this kind of investment?

@Eric Long I'm from LA and imagine the market is similar in SD.

I couldn't imagine what that would cost in southern California.

You are being a bit too nice - money is money and real estate is regulated if he did this to you I can only imagine who else has been taken for a ride.