Finally, perhaps it'd your investor and not the contractor, the perception of how much work and the actual amount of work that it takes, maybe skewed by the investor, the contractor may be the realist, think back at the last few cases and try to define a pattern, define who the realist is.

No, Remember this everyone.His perception is his reality.He is probably older and has been doing this the old fashion way and has a lot and realizes that he doesn't want to bother with this one as much as he thought he did.TIME AND CIRCUMSTANCES is always my perspective.

In addition, I think there's this perception that no one wants to be the "first deal."    

These expectations change with the market and with investors' perception of risk/return from other investment alternatives (stocks, bonds, REITs, gold, etc).

Conversely, lets say you had a duplex that rents for $1,600 a month and everything was selling at 120 times rent, it would be worth $192,000 (or $1,600 month gross rents X 120 GRM = $192,000).Deals are a matter of perception and what your individual goals are. 

But I have no sympathy for the bad actors in our business whose actions perpetuate that perception.

I suggest you book some vacation time.E mails simply get ignored and your PM will manage as he sees fit based on his likely perception that being out of the country there is little you can do except fire him (which only leaves you in the lurch).

In actuality, the more projects I do for you, the more money I lose.So the 'game-on' for you is to reverse this perception that Contrs have of investors.

But the feeling I got when this first sign went up has changed my perception of where I am at in Real Estate Investing. 

I'm straight up with everyone - if their best option is to list it after they've already approached me as being a potential buyer, then I will pass them on to another agent (whether in my company or not), just to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest.