I agree that the (same' ole) traditional approaches will reap the same results, so I'm hoping to 'disrupt' the industry's apple cart a bit here by making more intelligent inroads by targeting more 'desirable' clientele, so if by chance this sounds intriguing to anyone potentially interested in investing in a scaleable (online based) alternative to 'business as usual...'

Like night and day or apples and oranges if you prefer. 

In time I could have safely weeded out the bad apples who may have been of a violent disposition, but I'm not sure the juice was worth the squeeze.

To be as apples-apples as possible, what sort of rent roll would you get with existing housing for that investment size? 

Homes also go out of foreclosure so it might be a little challenging for a first bite at the apple.

I would prefer to not live in the cities around Minneapolis being that I work in apple valley and would not want to add time to my commute which would give me less time to work on a given property.

I don't compare our properties or strategies to anyone else, because it's not apples to apples.    

Come up with the closest apples to apples example you can come up with.  

In the days before the internet  & instant credit checks and background info at your finger tips, a few bad apples were able to fly under the radar, not so much anymore, thank God!    

Thus you'd need to adjust for both risk and for active management (time) to make somewhat of an apple-to-apples comparison.