It's unhealthy, not rewarding, unsteady, and the expenses make it barely profitable) he's trying to find some magic path to high reward, low risk. 

I may stand alone in this regard, but I really enjoy the rewards of upgrading windows from old, ugly, aluminum framed single pane to nice vinyl dual pane windows.

Not that you can try to negotiate better but it would at least be an interesting exercise to become more stringent on the property profile and back-off on the cash-on-cash return and see where it gets you.Or if cash-on-cash is the paramount threshold you can seek out value-add properties (risk/reward there) or some alternative markets that aren't as hot as Seattle.  

High leverage equals high risk and hopefully high reward. 

If the reward doesn't match the risk, it's not worth doing.

You might be taking on a ton of risk for very little reward.

But with risk comes reward, you could get a deep discount with a fully vacant unit if you have the experience and team to turn it around.

So basically, you are helping so many people and they want to reward you for doing so! 

But when done right, and when the numbers are ran before, they can also be extremely lucrative and rewarding.

The rewards for your discipline will be substantial.