That can be tough when it's a one-off job or you only have one rental.

At the end of the day, both of these respective vendors/individuals are paid when the deal closes. 

We just paid $500 for a 2,600 sqft house that was fairly clean.

Treat this property as a business and factor in all the associated expenses, including mortgage payments (if you pull a loan), maintenance, and potential vacancy periods.To simplify management and make this less of a hands-on job, I’d strongly recommend working with a property management company.

Not one of those jobs takes an hour.

My example shows the mortgage getting paid. 

Our whole job is to broker deals between buyers and sellers.

You paid the property owner $40,000 in rent.  

You can list all the reasons why you charge $250 for a one-time shoveling, but nobody will care when there are other vendors doing the exact same job for $100 or less.I'm in a city of 10,000.

I paid it and it was well worth it.