Just don't go into this thinking that it will not eat up some of your family time.I have found that there are deals out there, but there are 20 other investors bidding on the same deal. 

I'm just wondering because a traditional PM can eat into profits a lot.

EAT the $3000 and lesson learned for you!

No repairs eating up your cash flow.

Just be aware that when dealing with condos, a lot of time the HOA is an extra variable that you need to pay extra scrutiny to as a few bumps in the fee can quickly eat away at your cash-flow.

Welcome to BP @Matthew Thompson Im closing (selling) flip #15 on monday, i can tell you it takes a lot of Money, more than you may initially realize, holding costs eat you up, and no matter how you calculate it, unless you get lucky, you never make what you think you will, that being said, I have made a years pay on some deals, and a used cars worth on others,  know your markets, dont only len on the experts like agents, or contractors, know what your looking at, even if you need to buy a buddy in construction, a few beers to tell you if the contractor is screwing you. never take the agents value as gospel, I am a Realtor, and I have seen plenty of agents get the values wrong, mine are not always right either, just dont trust them with out verification.

Esp. in dollar terms a few mistakes could gut your return so the risk is much higher and the return is often not worth the risk.4) You typically only have so many great loans so putting it on a bunch of $30K properties is typically a much less optimal idea.5) Managing these properties is a huge pain and good luck finding a great property manager who is making only $75 per property per month (at 10%) or less.6) As you mentioned capex can eat you alive.

We paid it off last month cuz it was eating up good cashflow. 4 years after we got it it was down to 37k from 62k.  

In addition to the cost, the amount of time that you had to wait for the inspector to come back out was eating profits because it increased your holding costs. 

That's 3% below list/appraisal, not bad and your carrying costs trying to get the other $5k, if you could get it, will eat that up pretty quick.