A foreclosure will eliminate most liens.

What is the best way to structure these agreements to minimize the effect of this? 

The wording you're looking at is probably something like - "if you purchase a property that was shown to you by the agent, or brought to your attention by the brokerage firm during the time period that you had a buyer agency agreement - you will have to pay that brokerage a commission, even it that agreement is no longer in effect."

just out of curiosity - does a background story like; I’m doing this for my elderly, frail parents from another country - eliminate the need to abide by a contract?  

Otherwise (you have no ductwork) minisplit is the only cost effective solution.

You're unlikely to see many of your tenants, on average, suffer from debilitating effects of COVID, should they be vaccinated, as well.

I’m doing a cash-out refi on a 2-unit home and am dealing with a tenant who has only paid half of November’s rent, we are in the process of dealing with this tenant but if we go further with scheduling the appraisal, will this have any effect on that process?

LA is going to get the opposite effect.

We want to try the “snowball effect” and to grow portfolio.

You can cross reference it with high equity and/or absentee owners too and that would make your driving more effective.