I just posted this on another of your CA threads @Jay Hinrichs, but I think it deserves another here... 

My goal is to field 3 emails per unit per year, and one of those should be telling me they want to re-sign at the new rental rate every year.So far I have been VERY  successful in achieving that (more so than I think anyone can fairly deserve to expect).Here's the catch (no free lunch). 

You deserve to be compensated for your work.  

Maybe the government wants you to believe that the rich deserve not to pay any taxes and that corporations should be allowed to buy and own the government.

I worry that I won't be able to provide my clients the attention they deserve and will get elsewhere if I am just doing small-scale real estate sales/investment advisory on the side.

You just did all the leg work for the deal and you deserve 50%. 

There is always going to be problems with the system, we must not allow that to take the opportunity away from a deserving family.

No I have nothing against C-/D+ tenants, they deserve a clean, safe, and affordable pace to live just like everyone else.

There is vacancy (you have too much experience with this), maintenance/cap ex, PM (even if self managing you deserve compensation for this task), miscellaneous (portion of accountant, tax nan, office expenses, umbrella policy and/or LLC, etc).  

A lot of people took advantage of the employee shortage and were able to leverage themselves into much better jobs with higher salaries - but not because they were qualified or deserving of the job, but because there was no one else.