You should also check to ensure they have Errors & Omissions insurance, Fidelity Bond coverage, and a Financial Institution Blanket Bond.Some are more consultative and advisory and provide guidance, while others are just processors. 

Firstly, well done for persevering and trying every avenue you thought would get you the data you needed.Most would have caved earlier and handed out there hard earned cash for old, saturated leads/records from the same prominent platforms which dump them pretty much when they receive them from either 1).the same large brokers AFTER the county has listed them on the county website or, 2). from the counties themselves directly AFTER the county has listed them on there own website, or, 3). from data scrapers on Upwork/Fiverr who scrape the data from those same platforms AFTER the counties/brokers sell those platforms the data being scraped by the freelancers.Anyway, rant aside you seem to of made the same mistake i made when I first started branching out away from providing leads to my original couple of clients i got from Upwork who wanted me to scrape data from court records in FL for pre FC leads.Simply, I didn't know where to look for the information I needed in states outside of FL.FL only allows the judicial route to foreclosure so I only needed to know/find/scrape the data from Lis Pendens documents for counties they requested.

Depending on your level or preference of analysis, data and their providers are incredibly important and difficult to obtain when it comes to real estate underwriting.

Let me address your questions and provide insight from a lender's perspective:1.

Though USLI, one of the biggest umbrella policy providers, dropped my max coverage to $1M because I had pools.

A good realtor will have all the revenue and provide whatever is needed to make a sound decision.

STR can provide more cash (potentially), but its a high risk high reward strategy - if you invest in the furniture, staging, photos, and management or self manage, there is a lot of time and money invested.

Looks like Tim and Ezekiel have provided a bunch already...What are costs associated with snow/harsh winters?

Didn't they provide you with the guidance on how to open bank account for the LLC?

The information you provided is very helpful.