All depending on the lot you are building on, and quality of finishes.The best way to determine the cost of new construction in your exact area is just talk to a few local builders.

Do you usually suggest getting the more expensive quality product or something a little bit more in between?

I'm honestly not a huge fan unless you do an A+ job on quality.

You can hold a contractor liable for timeline and quality of work 

Colorado springs is less expensive than Denver and has a high amount of military personel, so typically tennants are higher quality and there is a constant flow of them.

Any market that you're interested in, there should be a quality provider in that area that you will need to vet so you can be confident about your goals being met.As far as PM goes... if you find a management firm that consistently gets the job done and is 100% TRANSPARENT then it's probably best to maintain that relationship as they probably won't like you working with their competitors. 

Unless a Brokerage is willing to give me quality leads, I'm not willing to work this way.2) In the meantime that I'm building up my experience and raising the quality of my leads, I'm giving up commissions by splitting the commissions on the buyers that I already have as quality leads through my friends and Investment Partners.

The risk can be in the form of low appreciation potential, crime, lower quality tenants, etc.

I would rather buy a few quality properties at conservative numbers over 5 years then load up on a bunch of marginal crap that will weigh me down and break even from some doing good and some doing bad and spinning my investing wheels.

And they are not known for good quality or customer service, at least in my experiences...