The simplest answer to avoiding encounters with the SEC (or some state agency), other than the really obvious ones of not putting a blatant ad in the paper, is to be sure your investors make money.

If anything changes in your relationship in the future, she'll have to pay your loan off when it's due or when she sells.And in the loan documents, you can either have her pay you interest + principal (simplest) or do some sort of profit sharing.  

Oversimplified maybe, but sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.

John to help you with this quest.. who was the lender.. there are plenty of lenders that would do that deal with a 203k  type loan or if its a local community bank they can lend on anything they like you should see what i buy and my local bank lends on.. extreme hoarder houses.and did you stop to think that this might have benefited the seller or owner of the note as compared to you coming in and buying the note.. maybe they did for the simplest reason of all. to minimize their loss or maximize their return.also when buying a note its not like going into contract to buy the asset.

County Tax Assessor's Site: Difficulty Level-EasyThis is by far the simplest way of finding who owns the property. 

I am not sure what paperwork is needed for this but it would likely be the simplest option here.

I have purchased from the same company each time with the same parameters each time.What is the simplest way to cross reference my lists to make sure I am not sending an initial piece twice to someone?

The simplest way to do this is find an off market deal.

I would think the simplest way to go about it would be to have the buyer sign a no brokerage relationship disclosure. 

Real estate notes have been around since the barter system was around.A real estate note in its simplest form is a loan.