That was a good a idea, I checked listings and called the utility companies and it looks like you are all correct.

Lastly what you will see is that civilization has come out to these places when you drive by and see some desert rat in his or her Mobile home stuck in the middle of no where that 95% of the time is on one of these old platted lots.. some areas Like some of the Lake co California areas town actually grew to them sewer and water and paved streets put in and houses builtBut for instance above Lucerne there are 7 thousand platted lots and I think 3 homes.. lots are 5 to 7k sq feet.. it was uncanny how they surveyed and platted them way back when .. this terrain is quite step but the road follow correct grades although some lots even with today techniques would be near impossible to build on.. 

Getting ahead of the path might require going further out than you think. 

Then buy in their path of progress or just outside of it.

I want to structure the partnership correctly so that everyone's assets are protected.

You are correct when you say "life doesn't always go as planned..." but I admire your determination and your focus to your real estate plan in life. 

Am I understanding you correctly ?   

Our whole business is centered around getting them on a path to homeownership. 

@Eric Schwake@Mark Welp is technically correct that real estate outside of an IRA is fairly well tax sheltered.   

I’m not a CPA, so I’d check with yours to make sure I’m correct before you go adding an unnecessary interest rate to your deal (if you don’t have to), but when I make all of my seller financing deals I use this link to see what the minimum interest rate is for the time period of my contract agreement (https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/federalRates.html)Let me know if you have any other questions.