@Lisa Thoele - Thanks for that practical information.  

Getting a property under contract & actively trying to procure or broker a buyer to assign your contract for an "assignment fee" (An Assignment fee is a Real Estate Commission...End of story.)I too have been very critical of some of these practices as there are some VERY SERIOUS legal issues with these.

I don't think it is a sound practice to compare a house in need of a significant amount of work to ones that are market ready.

I don't have cause for great concern as yet since as a practice I live in Jeff Cooper's Condition Yellow.

Obviously there are bigger issues playing out here than what you or I would normally do in the same situation.Personally having a tremendous amount of practical and real experience with MOTIVATED sellers, let me tell you that they don't care.

@Darrin Carey and @Ozzy Smith Thank you both so much for taking the time a couple months ago to drop knowledge on me when I was JUST JUST starting out, I know I am still green, but I was practically neon fluorescent green when I talked with you guys.

As long as they are prepared to have their license released back into the ether and not be able to practice any real estate then they are welcome to go for it. 

Maybe you start taking shortcuts (possible doing illegal things, or shady business practices).

Our CM team works flat rate, our incentive is to fight or eliminate change orders, CO's make us look bad to client.Getting multiple bids a good practice either way.

Have you looked into buying a building to locate your practice in?