Then I paid $25 to some online background check agency to find out if the owner had any other liens/bankruptcies/judgments against them and also got their contact info from there.

Recommend Googling for recent projects, then looking them up at the city's online site to find out who the architects are.

You can also check meetup.com or search Facebook for real estate investment groups, clubs, or meetings in your area.I'm in a small town where networking is impossible, so I do it online through facebook groups and BiggerPockets.

.-- All the info you need is available online from the local assessor, and pay attention to what the local community has tacked on to the mill rate.

So many people out there ,  that have online courses.

There are a lot of online sources out there versus going to the local courthouse.   

Courses online are relatively cheap and there's some brokerages like kw that have offered free online courses with no obligation to join afterwards.

From time to time we also hold an online meeting for talking about a specific topic.    

If the owner is an LLC, you can try to check online Corporate records to see who the agent for the LCL is and their address.

They create some online content and a FB group with all the victims and some of their admin people and sell these courses (docs)  for a huge fee.