There's probably more that goes into this, but these are the ones that popped into my head. 

I didn't do this so I popped around from flipping to small rentals to wholesaling to private lending and (now) to syndicating large apartment buildings.

Mom & pop owned places are the best for this. 

But I realize that this is still at a "mom and pop" level not big enough to hire a staff, dedicated maintenance team, etc. but big enough that I know I want to grow, quit my full time job and dedicate more of my time to my investment business.

I went through a couple of rounds of layoffs soon after I moved in (the little-known "personal computer bubble" of the early 1980s had popped).

Most of the time I don't think about it, the rent automatically shows up in my account, but everyso often something costing $500-$1000 pops out of the blue. 

Hi Kristin, when I run my numbers I personally start from the ARV and work my way back, in this part of the year I try to go conservative on my ARV and then even take 5-10% off that just to ensure the deal still works, then I run my rehab numbers, add an additional 5-10% on that just to ensure a buffer in the event something unexpected pops up (it will) and THEN I will find my acquisition price, ultimately I want to be ALL IN at about 75-80% of the ARV.

Most are mom and pop operations, where the owners live on site, act as managers, and scrape out a living.

With that issue popping up I shopped around and got a lower rate from Quicken.

The first thing that popped into my head was getting my real estate licence and becoming an agent.