They could be milking money from your lack of experience. 

It was the powered milk that I hated. 

Should I just paint it, skim-coat, or remove and replace with drywall?   

I am currently skimming my marketing and only marketing to houses I can afford which means I am missing out on a lot of potential houses.

It was fun while it lasted, but once word really got out and the newspapers started writing stories on it, well, it was gone by 2011.The lamentations still echo across the land over the loss of those halcyon days of milk and honey.Give me again all that was there, give me the sun that shone!

Its 15 minutes to the nearest grocery store so I try to have all the toiletries, basic first aid, and basic groceries (bread, eggs, cheese, milk) for them at the cabin already. 

"Rules" only mean if you should bother taking a deeper look at the property - it's a quick way of skimming to not waste a lot of time on things that can't work. 

Milk route.

What seems to be a "cash-cow" tends to get "milked" every year or two when your tenants move out.

Use top quality materials, you want this to last a long time.If the spawling is bad, chip off all the loose and soft parts and fill the voids with concrete, then skim coat the entire outside.