Do not be surprised if you lose your entire investment and maybe more, if you have a recourse loan.On the other hand, real estate is a forgiving asset class.  

It'd certainly be nice to keep all your cash on hand for property rehab to make the BRRRR work.

Firstly, well done for persevering and trying every avenue you thought would get you the data you needed.Most would have caved earlier and handed out there hard earned cash for old, saturated leads/records from the same prominent platforms which dump them pretty much when they receive them from either 1).the same large brokers AFTER the county has listed them on the county website or, 2). from the counties themselves directly AFTER the county has listed them on there own website, or, 3). from data scrapers on Upwork/Fiverr who scrape the data from those same platforms AFTER the counties/brokers sell those platforms the data being scraped by the freelancers.Anyway, rant aside you seem to of made the same mistake i made when I first started branching out away from providing leads to my original couple of clients i got from Upwork who wanted me to scrape data from court records in FL for pre FC leads.Simply, I didn't know where to look for the information I needed in states outside of FL.FL only allows the judicial route to foreclosure so I only needed to know/find/scrape the data from Lis Pendens documents for counties they requested.

But might help others avoid this pitfall…when a mortgage is transferred between banks, I’m learning they don’t record a lien release with the county. 

Looking for good first hand experience with a recommendation... just what every landlord wants, someone who knows what they're doing and is reliable.

Sellers or JV partners may value a hands-off partner who can handle rehabs.Start with a Strategy: Whether it's BRRRR (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat) or simply flipping properties to build capital, define a clear path for your first few deals that aligns with your long-term development goals. 

It's a great way to gain hands-on knowledge and connect with experienced investors!

I went to a learn-on-the-site program that our local REIA had recently.  3BR/3BA house, owner is probably in 145K after fix up (I know the purchase price, don't know what was spent to get it ready after purchase) and a handful of years later it's now worth 190K. 

I agree that many transactions shouldn't be done simply because you can.However, out of curiosity, if you had the opportunity to buy a $hit property with golden financing & then immediately sell the $hit property but keep the golden financing & transfer the financing to a great property would you consider it?

And definitely  not to the the refi before hand.