While you can get data directly from the county, it tends to be less efficient (whether measured in time or money) then buying it from a public records compiler / reseller.

I'm certainly not going to freely hand out information that took me years to compile and is a constant ongoing process - good contractors go bad all the time. 

I have full mls access with tons of great deals that I have located and I have also compiled a list of investors in my area.

I have heard the same thing about apartment owners & managers compiling a list of unwanted evicted tenants and have run into some issues with doing this.

I have a list of lenders I have compiled through BP recommendations and recommendations from my realtor. 

I have been working with contractors, the city, the intermediary entity for the NMTC, a small handful of banks, and a few RE agents to get all of the information compiled for the business plan and financial outlines.  

@Aaron Montague  Such a helpful list that you compiled.

You want a list that is difficult, uncommon, and/or takes some time and effort to compile yet is still effective, that way not many others will be hitting it ... one example is driving for dollars to build your list.

I am trying to compile all of this data so I can keep track of the trend and possibly use it for some capital gains in the future.The 5 metrics are:existing-home salesnew home building permitsmortgage loan defaultsforeclosure salesinterest ratesThis is the first time I have really dug into data scouting and I think it will be a useful skill set, once developed, because I am looking at getting into note investing in the next 6 months and using the cashflow from those assets to accelerate my SFR buy and hold strategy.

Thank you all for the advice, I've gotten keywords setup and I'm compiling a list of topics I want to dig deeper into as I read.