New carpet and tile flooring with black marble borders and baseboards, new paint throughout, new window coverings, new light fixtures throughout, mirrored walls, new sinks and faucets, and new appliances throughout.

Granite counters, new carpet & tile flooring with black marble borders & baseboards, new paint, new window coverings, new light fixtures, mirrored walls, new sinks & faucets, and new appliances.

GREAT over concretePros:If you damage a piece, you can lift the corner, peel it up, drop in a new piece and it cost you ~$1 and 30 seconds.( I have done this SO many times after damaging pieces moving appliances etc)We buy a couple extra cases and use the same pattern across multiple properties.

I don't have the energy to play cops & robbers, that's not my job.Separately, as part of management principles, I would always pay attention to patterns, who's the common element in said pattern. 

Your list should show that if it has owner info.I would mail monthly and track the results in detail including best day to mail, type of piece that gets results, owner occupancy, area and type of property that gets best results etc The more you test and track the more patterns you can uncover.

Getting the correct mixture and following a symmetric pattern is more important. 

This pattern is not helping small investors like me at all.

Has this helped in your adult life in continuing a pattern of frugality?

If they are doing periodic price drops that is a good thing as it may indicate that they have some motivation to sell it ... in that case, I would see if there is a pattern to the price drops, as in they are dropping $10k every 3 months or something like that ... if that is the case you can time your offer as the price gets closer to a good deal, put it in just before they would normally drop the price, but a bit lower than what you suspect they will drop it to.

If this isn't a pattern for him, I wouldn't charge him just out of courtesy.