Fees should be clearly stated, easy to understand, and justifiable.

I've been reading about hard money lending the past year but with my w2 income I cant justify HML.

Things like cutting the grass are things you might justify as "I would do regardless" and that's fine, but you shouldn't be pricing in time and aggravation for free.  

Wondering if those of you who invest in that area have found the rents high enough to justify property taxes that seem about 5 times higher than TN.

Like @Andrew Syrios said maintenance is typically an hourly rate (they might have a flat fee for really small issues to justify the trip); however, the pay for a project thing you mentioned would be a big job (typically capital improvement not repair expense) and for that you would take bids from different contractors and then try to keep them on budget while getting all the work promised actually completed and hopefully on time.

That being said, I felt as though the returns were good enough to justify the investment even in the worst case scenario; pretty unlikely that I will even owned this condo in 30 years anyway lol 

This is justified, but do you think this will create an opportunity for those willing to take on that risk?

You need some investor knowledge to justify not listing and selling for top dollar. 

I have been told by many CPAs that it is hard to justify the time requirement while having a full time job. 

Some companies may already be having trouble justifying a move to Texas over the recent rulings that allow states to make individual laws for abortion, with Texas' law being particularly difficult for some to swallow.