Is it possible for me to go straight to a utilities company, for instance, and ask for verification for this sort of thing?

For instance, here in MI we have Detroit.

(Silver Spring and Rockville for instance)

Ideally, the house would appraise for $250k, and I would be able to do a 80% cash out refi to get all the money back and repeat the process (the famous Brrrr). 

For instance, you can take advantage of accelerated depreciation, especially with STRs.

In other words, you MUST renew the lease of the tenant, except for the rare few instances outlined in the law.   

Frustratingly, those projections are released at the exact same moment as the Fed's rate decision and there's every chance that September's installment will cause some volatility in the bond market.For instance, if the Fed's projections are surprisingly friendly, mortgage rates could fall sharply on Fed Day and many uninformed onlookers will falsely conclude that the Fed rate cut was the thing that did the trick.One caveat to all of the above is that these conclusions are only as good as the market's understanding of the Fed's probable course of action.

For instance, if you tell me the entire $100K is going to be needed in 2 years to be the down payment on your primary residence", I'm going to advise a different investment type than if you tell me "the money only needs to return me an annualized 8% gain, I don't need the money for at least a decade, and I want zero management or oversight."

Also, using brokerage account such as Fidelity or Schwab may only work in some instances and will be challenging in other.

For instance, small multi-family has similar financing and offers faster scalability.