I'm not at the point where I think purchasing a truck/van to haul supplies (-ie, lumber, cabinets, water heaters, etc) is justified.  

If you are playing in the major cities, it's not a great cashflow market, instead, it is more of a market timing market where you buy, hang on for dear life and then sell.On bigger deals, you'll find mostly pension funds, insurance companies and large REITs competing for a short supply of assets and driving down cap rates.In smaller cities/areas, it acts like many other US markets.Overall, very high barriers to entry, but you can see appreciation that other markets can only dream about.

I supply salt and shovels... for major blizzards I pay for removal or offer a discount on rent for them to handle it on their own.  

Supply and demand.

Any company having to constantly find fresh meat is not supplying good inventory or overpricing.  

Population growth will continue to drive housing demand beyond supply. 

Be careful what you say and how you say it... by saying ALL the brokerages do anything in connection with a commission or fee charged for services may be bordering on anti-trust law infringement...No brokerages should be communicating about fee structures, and fees are SUPPOSED to be strictly determined based on what your brokerage is supplying to the customer.Maybe I am just a scaredy-cat.

For instance we just put Los Angeles' biggest Verizon franchisee in a long term lease and have a national pet supply company looking to get in. 

There is just not a lot of supply in our area and I consider staging an unnecessary expense at the moment.

I saw a report this week that says inventory is still low at about 2.8 months supply.