For cities with populations between 200,000 and 1,000,000, Dayton ranks 2nd nationally for business development.

Once you understand that, (risk tolerance, your active involvement, your cash or finance  availability,  you knowledge of construction, investing, market data, your trust in the team you have developed and vetted) you can then look at the best way for you to purchase.

The quality of tenant is the variable, most people that need section 8 are good people who just haven't quite figured out how to improve their situation in life, they just want a place to live and will generally behave if they have a solid, clean, safe place to live.Make sure you check local laws and rules around section 8 so that you don't get yourself in hot water, perhaps get in touch with the existing owner/property manager and see what there experience has been with section 8 and especially the current tenants. 

A developer has a property under contract right now, he has the engineering done so that he will be able to develop the apartments.

Give yourself at least one month to start but budget for 3 to be safe.

Apartments on top, commercial space on the bottom. Have you build one or do you own one? I'm trying to get some preliminary numbers to see if this is a realistic possibility.  We're thinking about doing a 3000sqft foo...

Purchase price: $480,000 Cash invested: $50,000 Sale price: $480,000 A Planned Urban Development, So it is a single family residence with a H.O.A. the community is kept up.

I’m currently looking for builders or developers who I could get to weigh in on it but I thought maybe the BP community could give me a few nuggets about this area or what to expect.

So really right in line with historical stock market returns.The beauty of real estate is the it is 1) much easier to buy advantageously (get a good deal) than with stocks--at least for the average person, 2) you can also buy, even without leverage, properties that out perform the stock market, and 3) you can safely leverage 70% to 95% without much difficulty, making your money work much harder for you. 

This is extremely safe for them because you are cross collateralizing to secure a 40k loan (in this example) with over 100k of equity.