It's all risk vs reward.

There have been numerous people on BP talking about how they paid application fees but they could never get their loans closed on any deal brought to the company.

Project took a lot longer than expected and cost more than anticipated, but was still a great and rewarding revitalization.

I have also represented folks on both sides of the deal numerous times. 

The Baltimore cons you mentioned make it seem like the risk/reward isn't justifiable because of lower costs / more deals.

I’ve come across numerous times being tied up in avg deals cost me a great deal

I have tried numerous services, all woefully deficient. 

That is one small risk to consider when house hacking, but the reward FAR outweighs any risk IMO.  

If you spread too far then it gets counter productive because you have numerous PM's and too little local knowledge.Then I moved into my nicest and least profitable OS property and now manage them myself; they are all within an easy hour drive with virtually no traffic.You have a very long list of states and cities there you might try to narrow it down.

Hi,I've started a blog called "bad landlord" in which I aim to share my lessons learned from my numerous mistakes as a real estate investor.