I think the business has pretty thin profit margins and they tend to take on too many units, which results in the quality going down.

I dont have the same type of margins, but houses dont really sell for 30k much anymore around here.

That's certainly one of the factors since 1sts tend to have tighter margins than junior liens.

A gross commission of 0.6% has sex appeal, but it can’t include the direct and indirect costs of listing, plus buyer commission, plus bundling title/mortgage services, plus a reasonable profit margin.

Not a great time to be chasing marginally profitable deals.

I don't have the interest or the margin to spend my discretionary time actively managing real estate.

At the end of it all you paid fees and did the work on a property to make a very low rental margin. 

After 30% down, the improvements become marginal.

Real estate investments (STRs, MTRs, live in flips) have produced my best returns by a good margin.

You are left with smaller margin of equity in your rental and figuring out the new property you added.