They just want to avoid the hassle of having Harris county try to figure out the right payments.

Now these figures do vary.

Because its (supposedly) from a foreign bank, it may take your bank a while to figure this out. 

The first step would be to figure out if you even going to have a gain on the sale.

LOL Russell when I got an email alert from a moderator I figured you were in here telling me to stop being such a smartass ;) ;) and yes, regardless of when the market turns if you're buying up cheap debt that will make you tons of money for the next 30 years then the next short term downcycle will be largely irrelevant.

Check them out, take notes, and figure out a way to put the advice of experienced members into action.

Even if tenants pay base plus cam to landlord they generally do not have the funds to cover parking lot or roof right away and landlord has to pay upfront and collect cam over the years to make it up.If you want to fully update the center for new roof,re-coat and stripe parking lot, new paint and facade etc. it could run into the 6 figures for that or more depending on building size.There are companies that buy shares but they want a discount. 

I figured I could safely sell the house for 80k when all said and done.

I wouldn't over think it about studying your market to figure out what will get you the best rates of turn.

Yet, after listening to you it almost seems like we should be searching out other deals and getting money from private people as early as possible.Much like you I have a little experience in construction from my college days (working for a contractor on my days off from school and over summers but I'm not a craftsmen), so there is a small advantage there, but ultimately it sounds like if I want to get to that "freedom number" faster, or at least earlier, I'm going to have to figure out how to scale.I'm under no delusions that I am an expert after one deal, but I thought that after doing 2-3 deals and making them successful we would then have the creditably to get loans from others to really acquire some volume.