@Dean KleinIf you're planning to buy more, then a Landlord Driven Neighborhood Revitalizing process will be worth while.

The landscaping cost (including the decks and fences) came in at $25k, I had only budgeted $5k for landscaping, but felt the additional $20k was a worthwhile investment.

You need to have confidence yours is exceptional to make it in any way worthwhile

., and the PM was relying on the next 12 months percentage of the rent to make their time worthwhile to find the tenant - then a termination fee would be fair.But, in my opinion, a termination fee is double-dipping.  

My question is whether it's worthwhile to buy a locking knob for the shared laundry/furnace room.

After cleaning fees + the $1500 expenses they will need to be grossing roughly $3,000-3500 per month to make this worthwhile.

You will pay more for a "rehabbed", lease-in-place property no doubt but it might be worth while since you will not have to manage the headaches involved.

Now granted, I'm sure a lot of people are sold on this method without having enough savings or additional income to make this method worthwhile.

And while having a brand to attract these types of customers is certainly worthwhile, without a lot more cost-of-acquisition data, it's impossible to know if a brand is going to be more cost-effective than direct customer acquisition through other methods.So, unless/until I see that data, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that a brand is essential to being a successful real estate investor.Again, my $.02...

If everyone could easily get into it then chances are its not worthwhile.