At first glance this looks very skinny.You could have a little more margin if you have value add opportunities such as rehab to move rents up a few hundred or you self manage, in which case you could pay yourself the management fee (keep in mind that you are locking yourself into low return if you remove this number from calculating because then you would never be able to hire a PM and still pay yourself if the number with PM included is low or negative).

It Negates having to do any maintenance yourself as well..Why isn’t this the better route to go, why isn’t this the default of most investors?

As long as you are living in this property, you are losing money to the tune of $8760/year...that's the negative CF you are getting. 

Anyone have any experience with negative nellys in your life when it comes to REI?

I think the ideal portfolio is a few properties that throw high cash flow (crappy), a very few that throw negative cash flow (you think they may have appreciation potential, and you bought for nothing down) and a bunch of bread and butter 3/2's in good neighborhoods, that throw moderate positive cash flow. 

What people don't talk about is that most markets where 2% is readily available, crime and vacancy are high and appreciation is zero.The only thing stopping unlimited appreciation in the Mountain West is water supply and air quality.Last year I spent some time playing with the House Price Index (HPI) and put together this chart for our metropolitan statistical area:In the last 20 years, neither our MSA, the state, or region has ever been at or below the national average.  

Regarding Jon's photo, the only negative thing buyers could say is regarding the difficulty getting in the void areas on each side to clean.

Previous commenters raising the point that interest rates are extremely low statistically speaking make an excellent point: being heavier on cash than normal might be a wise play at this point in time.

Positive or negative.

"Failure" to me would mean either negative cashflow (for a rental) or taking a loss on property instead of profit (for a flip).