Property purchase from yourself (or an affiliate) does not count as a qualifying asset for purposes of then various asset tests under the OZ rules, so doing the purchase now and figuring out the OZ piece later likely won’t work.Also remember that you need to have capital gains that were triggered within the last 180 days to be eligible for ANY benefits under the OZ rules, including the 10-year tax-free appreciation election.

But there are some missing pieces here. 

Purchase price: $225,000 Cash invested: $155,000 Sale price: $1,395,000 We took a piece of raw land through the rigorous seattle permitting process.

Since this property is out of state I had to rely on the team members to get their piece completed.

I went to check out this property and it was a total piece. description says its a shell... not the case at all. needs a total demolish!

Buying high might be risky, but waiting is the riskiest thing of all.https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-investing-timing-market-bad-ideaI recently wrote a piece on this exact topic and why you should jump in now  

Each building has 2 units at about 1500 sqft a piece. 3 units are 3bdrm 2 bath and one is 4bdrm 2 bath this unit is either slightly more then 15k sqft or this building is slightly bigger than 3k I'll know later this week. 

I then found a small piece of land in Denver, Colorado for a cheap price.

Ultimately, as a deal maker, you are in the best position to move first/move fast to find sites and and make initial zoning assessments that work for you as a developer.Once you have identified a piece of land that is in the neighborhood that you are focused on, or found a site, you then want to research the zoning of the property.Now, you may say: shouldn't you check zoning first and then find a site you want in that area?

I could go into contract and assign to end buyer but since I have the pieces in place, I'd rather have end buyer go to contract directly with seller and merely state my fee in the contract.