The most basic and logical explanation for something is often correct, but proving it can be a whole other ballgame.

When I meant by borrowing 200k was to buy a fixer upper for cheap (from a whole saler, or off market deal), and use that 200k to basically buy and rehab the house.

It's basically title light and it will give you an idea of lien situation. 

What someone "Tells" you is called hearsay and will not hold up in court.

Today your competing against silly money basically in the MFR space

If the counter layout just has straight sides (no corners), you can buy 8' wide sections of basic laminate counters for under $100 in stock at a lot of stores and cut them to the length you need.

I signed up for this course to get some basic info on real estate investing some time ago, but subsequently discovered BP and read other people’s review of this course.

You can decide if you want to repeat with another detached duplex to quad leveraging your increased knowledge and experience or if you want to use your VA loan and increased net worth to buy a long term family home (no house hacking).This is basically a BRRRR combined with house hacking leveraging the VA loan. 

[Basically, I reckon programs like this just want people like you to be their bird dogs.

Basically we've put our buildings for sale at prices which, while still fair to a buyer, would financially trump keeping the properties (even if management were free!)