The other spectrum is Cash Flow.

My properties aren't on either end of the spectrum but are under the median home price for sure.  

A huge spectrum of them really.

The investments you make are somewhere on a risk spectrum which correlated to your risk of losing the house.There are other sources of cash: bank of Mom and Dad, begging money from friends and family, asking for salary advance from your employer, getting a second job, getting a mortgage, getting a personal loan, getting a hard money loan... all of them come with different economic, time, and psychological/emotional costs.

I spent quite a bit of time at the Spectrum when visiting friends in the area.

The best and only way to protect your self is finding an honest and reliable contractor, I would start by attending your local meetups, get some contractors thru people in the game already. best of luck to you, unfortunately this happens all the time and it sucks, I had a contractor screw me last year for big bucks, we did a job together and sure enough took my share and ran off, and guess what I have no recourse, by the time I go after him ill walk away with penny's, so believe it or not it happens on both ends of the spectrum 

It runs the full spectrum in between because of what type of loan you are getting (conventional vs FHA vs commercial) and how you are buying the property. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you could assume significantly longer time periods for construction than your team indicates, but this will erode your financial returns due to overly conservative (meaning higher) amounts of interest carry and pref returns on equity.

That seems to be the lower end of the spectrum for the market here.  

Also tenants who think everything is my problem even when it’s really theirs, but my places are on the “high-end” of the rent spectrum so it comes with the territory I️ guess.