Contractors are spoiled around here, but that means I have to roll up my sleeves and work harder.

@Aaron David Lietz  keep in mind when you scale rentals especially low value rentals with highly transient tenants your just trading jobs.. to really make money on those low end rentals you have to roll your Sleeves up and work it.might not be full time but your not going to just buy them and they magically churn out money. 

Roll up your sleeves and put forth some effort to consume what is right.

I've got a substantial acquisitions engine in my business that makes this possible, so for you... set the bar at 70 or 75% of current market value, roll your sleeves up, and scrap!

You can find deals on the mls for long term hold as well as off market...depends what type of time you want to put in, one way you would be rolling up your sleeves and crunching numbers for properties on mls and see if there are opportunities that make sense with/without value add or you can roll those sleeves up and start cold calling, mailers, etc and taking that route. 

I crawl around HUD houses and foreclosures in Jeans and long sleeve shirts because some can get pretty nasty. 

I've paid off many mortgages this way.Be normal with payments forever and hire it out or roll up your sleeves and save some serious cash.

Many lenders, Loan Officers, and Underwriters...well frankly they are glorified order takers and are either too uneducated or too afraid to roll up their sleeves do get things done. 

Roll up your sleeves and dive in.

Cash is king, cashflow is queen, tenant quality is key, and a conservative margin of safety is the ace up your sleeve!