I want to avoid being massacred by those fees if at all possible.

Those who had luck getting work paid most of it to the company because of fees and others say it’s a scam. 

Because it is an investment property, you would pay all fees, including appraisal.

Private Money Lenders (PML): More flexible, relationship-based funding with lower fees.

And, yes, there are years of data points to validate that just within my office, tens of thousands of dollars of wasted appraisal and inspection fees for deals (mostly not mine, thankfully) that had 0.00% of going anywhere but the "Loan Application Declined" bin. 

From working with an S8 specific contractor the sentiment was that many people don't want to work on distressed properties, as they can work in nicer areas and charge more money.

Would you be willing to share what you charge for your transactional funding loans?

I’ve got a late fee enforced to try and disincentivize late payments.

Realistically, to make the business work, they are hoping all the people who are using the "free services" to eventually go into banking where they can collect fees for anything bank related.

They don't allow auto payments or automatically add late fees, and tenants would have the option to pull their payment back, which is not ideal.