In practice, a manager can handle day-to-day execution (guest messaging, cleaners, routine issues), but the owner needs to perform and document meaningful owner-level work—pricing and policy decisions, vendor selection/oversight, approving repairs and invoices, listing strategy, bookkeeping/financial reviews, and compliance tasks—because if the manager logs more hours than you, the “100+ hours and more than anyone else” test becomes difficult.

We encourage all our investors to budget for working with an experienced property manager as they can keep you compliant, handle the tasks you would prefer a professional do, take care of the maintenance and unit turns, and should add value with their service and experience.Buying a duplex and living in one unit or renting out rooms in a single family house is a good way to get started as it requires less down or look for a value add duplex you can refinance shortly after making improvements.We help investors do this in Michigan.To Your Success!

The goal is to become a developer building affordable housing!

But if they're looking for a quick in-and-out development, sewer is probably a must-have.What's the seller asking and have you pulled any recent land comps in that specific stretch?

I am a developer in South Florida. 

--Opening federal lands for housing development.

Developing land is super risky, so just make sure you are checking everything that needs to be checked with the right consultants. 

Great topic — ground-up projects can produce strong margins, but execution risk is where many investors get caught off guard.From the builder/developer side, the biggest challenges we consistently see are:1️⃣ Site Work UnknownsFill, compaction, drainage, and soil conditions can shift budgets quickly — especially in markets where lot conditions vary significantly.2️⃣ Utilities & Impact FeesWater/sewer access, well/septic requirements, and local impact fees are often underestimated during underwriting.3️⃣ Environmental FactorsProtected species, wetlands, and flood elevation requirements can affect both timelines and build costs.4️⃣ Permit TimelinesApproval periods — particularly when civil or environmental reviews are involved — can extend holding costs beyond initial projections.5️⃣ Builder Execution CapacityProject success often comes down to the operator’s systems, trade relationships, and cycle times — not just the numbers on paper.Because of these hurdles, we’re seeing more investors lean toward ready-to-build projects — where feasibility, plans, and permitting are already in progress or completed — as a way to reduce entitlement risk and shorten timelines.Ground-up can be extremely rewarding, but the upfront diligence and execution planning are what ultimately determine outcomes.Always happy to compare notes with other investors and builders working through similar projects.

Not to mention if you as developer have to over size your infrastructure for future development or do other off site improvements..

Requiring you to resend a detailed annual task spreadsheet every week while refusing to use your management or hospitality app creates unnecessary friction and defeats the purpose of systematizing operations, especially when you are self-managing and working full time.In practice, most owners set clear, standardized cleaning checklists once, use an app or shared document for communication and expect cleaners to confirm completion, not require weekly manual resends.