I'm at a greater disadvantage because my part of the funds has a higher financing cost  2.

:) A good agent will meet up with you for a few hours, and along with educating you on the entire buying process (financing, contracts, inspections, what to expect in negotiations, etc) they will also be able to guide you by running comps and telling you if the home is priced well, as well as discovering any issues preventing the property from selling (liens, disputes)...Not sure about CA and AZ, But I have a buddy who renovated his dental office without pulling permits, and when the city found out, they made him literally gut it and redo it with permits.I would urge you having some conversations with agents in your area. interview a couple, and they should guide you in the right direction.

From my understanding, her initial plan going in was to use a HML to finance the land purchase/construction costs to build on the lot.

Figure out what type of strategy you want to do , ie - house hack, brrrrr, wholesale, seller finance, etc If you have any follow up questions tag me in a reply or shoot me a PM 

Property was brought to us off-market by a seasoned wholesaler of whom we had a track record of buying from How did you finance this deal?

What if you financed the house from the builder themselves? 

None of that would matter if your client was buying or controlling property using Seller financing, leases, options, or subject to purchases.Commercial lending is great, but should not be anyone's only strategy as it restricts scalability.

In less competitive environments where we don't necessarily have to bake in hard EMD to get awarded a deal, could we perhaps do a clause in the PSA that says something like: return EMD if DD and finance contingencies are not met? 

Plenty of people want to sell right now, but the cap rates aren't right or the financing is not right, or the buyer expectations are not right.People tend to lump commercial into one big category vs residential. 

Timing up your financing when it comes to purchase/refis/etc. is going to start becoming more and more important as you continue to grow in doors and working capital.