Was it worth the sacrifice?  

I own a property worth $200k.

With a mortgage the borrower signs a Note and a mortgage creates a lien on the property to secure the debt which must be recorded in the public records to provide notice to third parties. 

Give fair housing testers the right to secretly record your call, trying to trap in a fair housing issue.

Just make sure to vet them carefully and ask for references from past deals and proof of their track record.

Saving $10 to miss out on proper data that leads you to a $40k deal is not worth it. 

None were a match for me personally and many were not a strategy I wanted or too speculative (such as opportunistic strategy which is the riskiest strategy or investing in tertiary markets which also tend to be the first to go belly up when there is trouble etc).You probably actually want to look at your operating agreement to see what rights you have to books and records, etc. 

If I create a debt fund that offers 9% interest on first lien notes with a 5-7 year payout, would that be attractive to high net worth investors?

As mentioned, we "openly and notoriously" record the deed for the world to see so there is no hiding things from the bank (which could be construed as fraud not to mention poses many other risks for creditor liens, etc.) 

Prices a few years ago were based on expectations of (in addition to interest rates staying low): - Then current operating cost assumptions (like insurance cost expectations being flat)- A seeming disregard for record levels of new inventory / supply hitting the market- Extremely high inbound migration expectations which are likely to not be met, due to both natural disasters and the boomerang effect when people from California or the Northeast move to the American South and hate every minute of the humidity, the large and relentless swarm of insects, and the occasional hurricane.