That being said, there are so many scammers pulling crap in that space.

At my age everyone ignores me or treats me like crap so those that actually listen and help are valuable to me.

You are talking about wall tiles here - I would have to see a picture, but I can't figure out in my head how you would have trimmed that out without it looking like crap or how it would meet surfaces properly, i.e. sink, etc. 

Saw it last time before the last downturn in 2007 the same kind of crap was happening.My friends have either moved to other investment avenues or they now rehab and sell move up homes.

Screening is a crap shoot . 

That is such crap.

I would love to close my first deal, but the title company is giving me crap...Or are they?

They change so much between proposed and final that it's a crap shoot. 

I guess my main question is...as a newbie...am I building in too much extra for into the "oh crap I really screwed this up and I'm totally going to lose my shirt" fund?

On average I had 2-3 calls a year.....so lets say $800/year....... that's a LOT of cost for some pretty basic repairs that would have been cheaper if I found a repair man myself to do the repair.I did it out of convenience since I was out of state and dint have an connection to local repair services etc...... they made the arrangements....but when you actually look at the cost and the crap work they did, it was a bad business decision on my partYou MAY get lucky and THEY fit the bill for some big expense, so in the end you save big $$, but the cards are stacked against it.....