Look at the apartments in the area of your condo, these apartments are going to be your direct competition, you'll need to offer something they aren't offering to win the customer between the two of you.    

Prices may be many times that in certain rent controlled situations.My suggestion is to research the laws and customs in your target city.

My customers had a choice.

Second, we had to use a custom-built wood front door.

They are not your partners they are customers and should not be allowed to leverage you.

Qvinci is an option for custom reporting 

Questions that I'd have about the references: -Are they customers who have closed loans with him or associates? 

In CA I can email title company day of the sherif sale and within two hours I’ll get the clear to close title very or detail title report..... i am finding it very difficult here on the east coast  when I was an active buyer of courthouse steps our title company kept a running spread sheet of every NOD in the 3 county area and updated it daily for us.. then we call customer service morning of and they do a date down for us on the phone..  

If you have the mindset that you are there to serve your tenant (customer), then you will be much more successful in my opinion (of course in business, sometimes you need to fire bad customers!)

Also check out build.com and overstock.com Build.com has great customer service and will try to beat Lowe’s or Home Depot on prices.