Brandon writes about this in his book and a lot of investors preach it, but cash-for-keys is a terrible practice that should only be used as a last resort.

I think out of over 500+ guests, we have maybe had 2-3 terrible guests (nothing major, though), and around 5-10, I would never host again.

Both of these groups tend to want more business and so are not terribly hard to find.Contractors are hyper local, and typically, as a flipper, once I find some good ones, I don't share them with others because I don't want them to be too busy for my projects.  

In between years are 5-8% That is a terrible deal for the investors.

This is always tough because your agent MIGHT be terrible, but if a property is on the MLS and it's priced appropriately, you will get offers.

There are some instances where that was truly the advice to give though, such as a person saying they have no time, are terribly stressed, don't know what to do, etc.While there are a lot of repeating questions/problems on this site, sometimes people forget to fully read a thread and see the unique problem.I just recently moved my properties over to a PM.

There is so much incorrect and terrible advice on these forums, especially related to tax strategy. 

Those services you mentioned are terrible for vacant houses for the reasons I mentioned in my post.  

The problem may be you.I hear owners say "I have tried 5 property management companies in 3 years and they are all terrible.

But, generally speaking the 3 month seasoning products are pretty terribly priced with 3-5 year pre-payment penalties.