This year I am offering sellers the option of trusting me to list houses for them and use the marketing, sales, and negotiation skills I have acquired in my private RE business to help these sellers sell at retail. 

The market is red hot right now and you can easily make $200k or more in that area with retail transactions. 

If someone lists their property for sale on the open market, then we pursue the property (Within reason) so that other people can’t block our assemblage.We are using different entities to hold  title to the properties.If we purchase enough of the surrounding property, we would like to approach the city and rezone the land from office to mixed-use (Residential over retail).Any thoughts or strategies you have employed to make an assemblage successful?

Regarding a weak lender- We had a retail client who was part of a special program for 1st-time buyers.

You need to be very careful with retail strips or other anchored centers right.

You are trading in monthly cash flows for much greater stability, especially when you are talking about markets like Cambridge and Boston (and especially since you are buying more or less retail product 100% leveraged, its going to be tough to have amazing cash flows). 

Multifamily,Single Family, Industrial, Office, Retail, Hotel or something else.

If the person whose name is on the credit card says they aren't living there, then have the tenant arrested for credit cared theft and tell the person whose name is on the card that you are going to do that.

I have also found the contractors that will float the cost tend to be higher priced, more of retail price than an investor-friendly price. 

Most times, it's other asset classes in real estate such as single-family homes, apartment buildings, and commercial office and retail buildings that bring in more tax money from businesses and taxpayers which becomes more of a monetary issue.