Except, for a group that is only putting in 0.5% of the equity, taking 28% of the promote seems very out of market, to me.

For a regular residential deal you can expect a 5-10% contact rate on any list you call.

Who will drive by regularly and check for unauthorized renters, weeds in the driveway, trash piled up, a tenant taking up five parking spaces, or other issues?

You can pay for it with FHA loans or regular loans.

2) If you advertise your property for rent at $1300, S8 won't pay the pure rent of $1550 - which would be over market.There are several scammers promoting themselves as S8 gurus online that use questionable means to get around #2 above. 

I regularly listen to the bigger pockets rookie podcast.

As I got to know more investors, I learned many of them were regular people that worked hard, saved up, and invested.

The CMA is right on the sale price - My payments to the seller includes a 25 year amoritization rate, so my monthly "mortgage" to the seller(300k with interest) is greater than their current mortgage. (200k with the same interest rate)- Going the regular financing route (25% down) is not desirable since I would need to dip into my primary residence HELOC for the downpayment.

Did you get any kind of regular home warranty?

So far as actual days of the week, Mondays can be busy with regular operational items, weekly reports, weekend follow-up, etc but generally speaking Friday is much busier than Monday because teams are getting ready for weekend move-ins and more people come to see apartments Friday/Saturday than any other day of the week.