Is it better to wait 'til it's sold, talk about the experience, reflect on lessons learned, and hopefully celebrate our profit margin, or is it better to simply be posting something, frequently, no matter the tone?

No mortgage.

That’s the biggest risk 

You will not get a lot of responses on here for several reasons - too many questions, not a big enough pool of people to answer the questions, and most agents have no clue about what it takes to work with investors. 

One property has no mortgage.

And renting to employees of one of the biggest employers in town didn't hurt with the government either.  

Although I have no idea where to begin, real estate investing has always piqued my attention.

I’ve sent emails and texts asking the contractor to please return, but no response. 

So a sponsor that's great for one investor will probably be terrible for another (and vice versa).I'm a conservative investor, so when I invest in real-estate I prefer sponsors that have at least one full real-estate cycle of experience, little to no money lost, low leverage, and high skin in the game.And there is a multi-family operator that has multiple real estate cycles of experience (decades) and it's track record claims no money lost in that time.

If you are less, then no big deal if you want to check it out.