<soapbox>The purpose of the "50% rule" {of thumb} is to enable you to quickly triage candidate properties and dispense with those for which a deal simply could not work.  

However, that right of termination expires upon execution of the contract for deed and failure to give the disclosure does not affect the validity of the resulting contract for deed.In many of the contract-for-deed transactions targeted by this legislation, however, the seller and buyer do not enter into the normal purchase agreement, but, rather, skip that step and simply go directly into the contract for deed.

With HUD, you simply bid and wait until you have an accepted offer before you have to submit proof of funds, earnest money etc.  

As such, I would not say it "kills" as much as it simply has affinity on value.  

Its often very beneficial to have a coach or someone to guide you along the way, but not many people are doing it for free and often times the hefty price tag, is completely avoidable by simply networking.  

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If you just simply use multifamily without a noun following, you don't technically need one.

Is it simply fear or is there more to it than that?.. 

The idea of forfeiture would not apply, so the Vendor (Owner/OP) could not simply evict.  

At first glance, the $495 seems cheap, and probably makes you wonder the reason for the low price; however, it could be explained for a variety of reasons: (1) it is that contractor's bread-and-butter; (2) the other two high priced contractors are swamped with work and simply won't do a job for less than x amount; (3) the low-cost contractor is in need of work and will work for a smaller profit margin.