Each time  I've lost a deal I didn't find out to afterwards what I did wrong.

To date, I have never lost money in Real Estate. 

If it doesn't, you get your earnest money back and you haven't lost anything because you weren't "waiting" on this one home to make you an investor.  

I think my greatest achievement was surviving the real estate Great Depression without losing any of my investor's money (although I lost a heck of a lot of my own), without losing any property, and came out the other side with a much larger and stronger real estate investment business than I ever would have imagined.I think my "proudest achievement" is having raised over $25 million from investors (and growing), all by word-of-mouth and referrals.

Condos are tricky because you don't control the expenses.

A few examples of people who seem to have good strategies for a market in flux: Show 2 with Karen Rittenhouse on “subject-to” deals, which seems like an excellent strategy in a market where homeowners may have just lost their jobs and can’t afford their mortgage, but want to stay in their houseShow 19 with Tracy Royce, discussing short sale strategies in great detail.

My very first purchase I lost the auction because I hit my cap.

My question is does the bank only have control of the property and the "owner" still holds title?

You can use a custodial account or if you wish to have more control special purpose LLC can be utilized to gain checkbook control and minimize custodian fees and eliminate their involvement in the investment. 

For example it wouldn't make sense for the tenant to do 20,000 of TI they pay for but you have in lost market rent and future rental increases losses of 100,000.