I believe most places charge a 3 percent fee or more

With an ARV of 250K, you'll be able to pull out 187,500 less additional closing costs for the cash out refi.

Is there a great service that'll let me pull an accurate list and accurately skip trace?

Even with a 25% fee, you're cash flowing better than a long term rental, so the fee should not deter anyone! 

I do not want sales agents in my market to believe I am expecting a fee each time I purchase a property and go out of my way to make it known to the broker community that they will represent me and collect their fee if they bring me a deal.

The assignment fees then enabled me to roll into other strategies, buy and hold, fix and flip.  

I tried getting heloc from my large bank, However I was denied due to my income. if you can't get the credit lines for some reason from your bank then they have resources for that, even their own cpa you can use for a fee.

What if I fix & flip instead of rent, can it pull actual sales comps and group by renovated and estimate the ARV?

Closing fees won't be any different if they are 4 seperate fee simple properties.

Lawyers, engineer, architect, expeditor, surveyors, etc pile on the fees quickly.