I'd hate for a temporary dip in the quality of the tenant pool to be giving my landlord "spidey sense" false alarms on account of taking an extra month or two to fill a unit.

It can eat into your cash flow, but if you're earning high income from your W-2 job (I assume you are if you're buying in all cash), it makes more sense to use your time making more income versus managing maintenance requests as you scale. 

It's not an effective strategy but a lot of investors believe throwing in high end appliances in itself secures a buyer. 

I believe the one benefits most besides the politicians are those low quality tenants that are hard on units, pay late, rough on the neighbors, etc.

@Ezra Avery you might want to read below to understand Classes of Property/Tenants.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

Now more than ever, I am seeing offers required to be submitted through a portal where the listing agents want no business being involved with up front negotiations.

Funny story is my ex wife's mother went to grammar and high school with OJ.

They are usually looking at C or D properties that local agents tell them will “cash flow“ They usually don’t cash flow because of high maintenance and vacancy.

The quality of the reports you receive also varies.

Everything they do is quality.