They just make a repair list with figures and no guidance as to the necessity of the repairs.You mentioned this is your first tenant-turn over experience, which leaves me to assume it's also your first experience with your property management company. 

ITs not to churn a fee..Most Turn key companies start in PM out of necessity and until you get to about 1000 units or more there is little to no money in it.. simply a job.. with razor thin margins.. but if you can bust that 1000 door mark and get to 2 to 3 k you now can be the target of a big PM company that might pay you a 1000 a door to buy your book. since you did all the heavy lifting to get that PM company to that level..

Not a necessity but I also recommend to look for CBS homes because they will help you get better insurance quotes. 

Just trying to determine the pros/cons and the necessity of it all?

Still not my favorite thing, but understand the necessity of them. 

it's good to be in a business that provides one of the basic necessities of like...shelter.

What I don't get is when people buy insurance on an engagement ring or something that's not a necessity (apparantly these aren't covered by your homeowners, they cost a few hundred/year to insure separately) 

In looking up some of the forms and other necessities for renting a property in Philly, I came across this fantastic list provided on a local Philly REI blog: http://brownstonere.com/blog/landlord_guideHope this is useful to some of the other Philly landlords on BP.

This is regarding positions of deed of trust / mortgage recording: When the first mortgage is paid off, the HELOC would go to first position...then the refinance would by necessity be in second position, which is a weaker (riskier) position.

I don't own a rental property myself, my dad used too, but that was more from necessity.