Up front fees (outside of appraisal fees) are typically a red flag when dealing with a HML.

Jason, or WHOEVER you really are (your BP page gives absolutely NO information about you - typical for those “keyboard warriors” who spend their time trying to “get even” for the bullying they endured during childhood)Your tactics are reprehensible, reminiscent of Wisconsin Senator JOE MCCARTHY.  

You typically need to be in the $400-450k range to see those rents.

In these instances typically the lender will pay it to protect their interests. 

Eventually, after finally admitting he could not obtain a loan, he failed to return my capital, and completely stopped responding just long enough until the banks were unable to reverse any payments.

I’ve been unable to find anything.I’m new to the Cleveland market and was able to navigate the LAIC issue.

Next step is typically to file the action at the courthouse, like you said. 

The cons as i see it include loosing the 2 of 5 year cap gain exception, typically not an ideal rental because the emphasis at purchase was buying a good home for your family and not a rental with optimal return (my ex-home consistently has the lowest cash flow for equity in my RE portfolio), not disconnected enough from the property causes addition angst on damage and may result in over improvement.  

I have seen a lot of folks that typically BRRRR pivot to flipping for the time being.

I can only think that this grows as we move into the typical buy/sell season.I assume that your buyer funnel is full, and a lot of people have the want to buy with a constraint or two (rate mostly) of some sorts and you're working with them to execute their purchase at the right time while working around their constraint.