I've been hesitant to go into business with friends, but it could be a powerful play, and a valuable learning experience.

Leverage is an extremely powerful tool!

My suggestion for you would be to use the all powerful "Youtube University".

Hey @Steven Barr, I suspect the various clerks were just being cranky and/or having a laugh at your expense.Every county in Georgia has a physical "newspaper of record" where foreclosure notices (AKA "Notices of Sale Under Power") are required to be listed.Fortunately, there's also a FREE website (https://www.georgiapublicnotice.com/) that aggregates data across multiple Georgia counties into a single, searchable database, bless their hearts!

Been thinking about taking on a personal loan of 50-70k for purchasing power in my Midwest market, the loan would just be for down payments and closing costs on sub 85k SFH / Duplex properties.

Absent a clause in a trust that provides for a beneficiary to designate powers of sale (or will, if that’s the controlling document) then you are just an interested buyer party.  

If you are set on selling, sounds like you can also do a 1031 exchange to defer capital gains tax on the sell which would strengthen your buying power as well.

Door lock, detector batteries, other consumables, replacement of damaged or disappearing items like pool towels and linens, replacing blown out screens (I spent over a grand just on screens last year though we did have a freak huge hail storm).

Other times the power was off and we got a full inspection and asked the inspector to keep an eye out for anything that looked strange and everything worked fine. 

Real estate is a long game, and while appreciation is a powerful tool for wealth building, it should be balanced against the immediate financial realities and the market's future outlook.I hope this helps!