Some of the institutional sellers also helped encourage or maybe helped enabled folks to try and get involved by flipping their loan tapes out into the public and then quickly losing control of where they went.

(eventually of course)Does anyone know if a site like this already exists, or if there is a public database already?

Too many books, deals are public record, too many moving parts to hide things.

If you dummy it down enough the public might find it interesting.

There should be public computers you can use to access public data.

@Kevin Kraver, There's a lot of confusion in this thread on the DST as a public SEC registered offering and DST as you mean it (an entity vehicle to own real estate in CA and avoid some of the FTB expenses. 

I obtained multiple phone numbers, how ever many I could pull, for each multifamily owner, from one of the best public records softwares.

Do you think talking with realtors over the phone, along with public officials and reading reports on the area's crime / school systems would suffice for enough research? 

I know what equity is but how do I know how much equity is in the property from public records?

You will want to have public utilities billed directly to the tenants if you can.