I've read that in order to properly estimate utility costs for an area, one just has to call up the local departments.

You can request the history from the utility companies but keep in mind that if there were high vacancies the utilities would be understated.

As a General Contractor, I'm wondering what the process looks like to utilize equity in a house that I build to build new projects. 

Some agents specialize in investors and spend most of their time finding off-market deals for their clients utilizing the tools you mentioned.

Do they take care of utilities, lawn and pool maintenance, or do you?

Gasoline, insurance, utilities, it all adds up.are you paying enough in rent that mortgage payment is the same or less?

The basics are I would rent a number of units from the syndication LLC, would be responsible for management and expenses (ie utilities), and then I would keep a portion of the profit (basically my upside for managing the mid term rental units) and the other portion of the profit would go to the syndication LLC which now gets over market rent.

For example there are a few states like NC that the NC Bar as of April this year no longer allows attorneys to double close UNLESS the buyer in the first transaction funds the deal with their own funds or a transactional lender.Then there are states that no one questions it and things go smoothly using "pass through funding" utilizing the end buyers funds to pay for the first transaction. 

You would only utilize FHA on a 2-4 unit with 3.5% down.

They unexpectedly discovered how to work in both markets by utilizing ‘boots on the ground’ resources in Colorado.