This will impact you financially, because you will have more vacancy and each vacancy will cost you more money to get it rent ready again.And on the maintenance side, GE appliances or your local plumber don't care what you are collecting in rent.  

Hiring a reputable GC is more than just saving money on the build.

-Be able to turn your phone off because your voicemail lists an emergency contact for your on call plumber/hvac guy.

I fix it or call a plumber.

He and his family have long held a reputation in the city for not being honest people.

There are some reputable lenders that go down to 75k - just know below that 100k loan amount level that rates and cost may seem higher because of servicing and man power inputted into the deal still cost the same for lenders and brokers involved.

But how could I not be on edge when the entire deal, and our reputation, was hanging by a thread?

If your ideal apartment has nice showerheads, then you could have called a plumber to replace all 7 at the same time to save money.  

Once you've established yourself as a thought leader and built a solid reputation, it's time to unleash your investment opportunities upon your trusty investor list.

One of the largest competencies of REI is scalability through other people's time (OPT), often times carried out through PMs.If your goal is to own a smaller portfolio, then perhaps doing your own property management makes sense.If you want to acquire medium to large scale apartment buildings, then you probably won't even get a loan from a commercial bank without proof of using a PM with a solid reputation.