Publicize here on BP and take out a meetup subscription and advertise. 

I am able to purchase a monthly subscription so I can access all records online, but I would rather physically go there to familiarize my self with the available records first. 

Is it worth the subscription fee?

It's a subscription site and costs a few hundred dollars a year to subscribe.

I've had a subscription to Ancestry for years.It will not find relatives do much as identify those you need to find.You best starting point is to look at a death certificate for next of kin. 

Because around here (Seattle / Tacoma / Bellevue area), I'm not coming across a whole lot of vacant houses, and I'd like to start casting a wider net.I've been test driving the Property Radar app on the three-day trial (which is awesome, by the way, and I will be continuing the subscription), so it's fairly easy for me to see what kind of equity, etc. is in a house while I'm driving past it. 

The county may have this for free on the Web now, but for a long time, their land records were subscription-access only; realtors and banks would subscribe, but the only free option for normal humans was the library. 

I went to their page, and at the bottom it says that after the 7 day trial period, monthly subscriptions are $39.98.

Am I going about this right or are there websites, paid subscriptions that are worth it?

Any "side deals" not disclosed in the Closing documents, aside from being illegal, would violate the lender's terms of the note and mortgage subscription; resulting in the mortgage being called.Now, when it comes to concessions / credits which are disclosed as part of the transaction, while they are permitted, lenders will become "concerned" {read: suspicious and frightened} if the concessions are too large.