We love the house and have been taking good care of it, as the last tenants didn't seem to really care about the property--nor did they want to talk to the landlord about issues, so let things go to the wayside unless it was unavoidable (like a garbage disposal breaking?

So a drop in rent prices has been unavoidable.

Confrontations are unavoidable to be successful in this business. 

It should be far and away the easiest kind of landlording to do, something anybody should be able to, at the most, read two or three books about and handle.A small, local portfolio should be the second-easiest sort of landlording to do, especially if you buy some quality and stay far away from C-, D-class areas and tenants with poor credit.But the unavoidable truth for me has become that most people who want to buy property as an investment aren't good at being a landlord in a position of both authority and responsibility.

been looking at a few properties and thinking along the same lines, turnkey/comestic value adds are looking more and more attractive in this market where premiums are nearly unavoidable for any condition.

I included closing costs but keep in mind those are unavoidable for real estate transactions.

If you plan on managing yourself, that is probably unavoidable.

When you manage 100+ units, bad tenants are unavoidable.

Or is this something that's just unavoidable when using the rent by the room strategy? 

The tax-savings argument is only attractive to people because the mortgage is unavoidable for nearly every layman.