I also agree with your assessment of the majority of the type of indivulaes that are on section 8, and although there are exceptions, it does not fit my business plans to waste my time trying to find the few good apples in a tenant pool consisting predominantly of damaged goods.Each landlord has the right to choose to whom they wish to rent to and although others may judge it really is no one else's business.

Check out sq ft price for an apples-to-apples comparison (of apples, ha ha).Of course, it all hinges on what property type you are looking for. 

If Johnny has 10 apples, and 20 people want apples, how low will the price of Johnnys apples go?

Do one task at a time in each app so you can compare apples to apples.Load a property with pictures and details.Market that property.See what your marketing looks like from the public's perspective.Submit a fake application to see how easy the process is.

That should cover him and you, all verbal is dangerous as one contractor might miss a lot, one might expect more work, then you'll have apples and oranges bid.

I may even hire a v/a to cold-call for me in addition to purchasing a car magnet.  

The returns are all based on the deals and the leverage is similar. 5 smaller properties is more liquid and the risk is lower since finding 1/5 bad apples is better than finding 1/1 bad oranges.

The best and most accurate way is to have your real estate agent run the comps.If you want to do it yourself you can look up CLOSED SALES on Realtor.com, Redfin, Zillow, etc.Just make sure you are comparing properties apples for apples when determining the ARV.

I'm a flipper, yet there are a lot of buy and hold types in this market, it's about 2 hours from the Big Apple (dated).

The only way it will be an apples-to-apples (or bacon-to-bacon, whatever you shop) comparison is if you have an absolutely identical grocery shopping list week after week.