So the net result is that you don't have an apples-to-apples comparison.  

A few of these bad apples can really spoil it for the one's that do a good job.

Ryan, if it is your residence the liability is limited, if you are in business selling apples or iPods or houses, it's business income and such is treaded as such.

After I took over and started fixing up the place and getting rid of the bad apples, the place was running at full occupancy, with almost half being women who really kept the place clean.

It's also the place to weed out potential bad apples.

Unfortunately, we had to remove the links to the podcast per instructions from Apple in order to get the app approved.  

Get up to speed on the market you are looking at: rents, sales prices, compare prices (and be sure to compare apples to apples with age of house, size, lot size, finishes, etc.)

The having one walk with multiple contractors is, the owner will not have to repeat himself, have an apples to apples bid instead of changing scope or scope creep issue -- this is common if the owner does not even know what he needs --, another is that one contractor might ask a question that is an important scope and the owner might not see it, voicing that question might improve everything.

Trying to compare apples-2-apples so the rentals that were older homes I'm not looking to compare.

Poe is right, bad apples are not just in RE but in all areas of business, greed, laziness, immaturity aren't limited to RE.