Back in January I figured I would pull out some equity out of my current house I live in.

This one we couldn't pull out all of our closing and down payment costs.

I’ve been concentrating on figuring out what areas of Cape to concentrate on prior to pulling the trigger on something.

I could pull roughly 25k out.

However, even if the public records are easy and open, you can save a lot of time working with a list broker who has compilers that can pull homes with the criteria you want and differentiate between the UPS store mailing address and property address.

In a perfect world everyone you hire would give you a written quote on company letter head spelling out the scope of work, estimated cost, obtain the materials on your behalf, bring all their own equipment to the job site, show that they are registered and bonded in the municipality where the work is being done, and pull the permits.

@Dominick Marschall another option would be to do a cash-out refinance of the property and pull out some cash.

A written lease should contain a "both parties agree that any/all other or previous or outside agreements are void" clause, that you could then show to a judge if the tenant pulls out an audio recording of a rent to own agreement with the previous owner (gotta be a bit paranoid when it's a $500k asset on the line).

I have friends that live there with their families but cant pull the trigger on buying a rental there. 

You’ll most likely have many conversations before you pull the trigger on your first deal.