It would appear that these online sponsors are taking a tremendous liability risk be allowing virtually anyone who passes a salesperson's exam to effectively go out there and do whatever seems ok to them.

You deal in the commercial arena where virtually all the buyers and sellers are sophisticated.

Usually there are options to upgrade signage, display additional photos, add a virtual tour, lockboxes, etc.Doing it completely on your own is possible too, but @Brandon M.   

the sheriff proceeds to move every last one of them out and once complete my eviction guy informs me that a virtual goldmine of stuff remain in the house.

1.Subscribe to the BiggerPockets Money and Rookie Podcasts2.Attend the FREE WEBINARS3.Attend a Meetup in Your Area / virtual meet ups4.Purchase the Beginner Books: How to Invest in Real Estate, Set for Life, The House Hacking Strategy5.Peruse the forums!

I agree with you that seller carryback is virtually non existent at the moment.

Well, I am forced to ask this question because I have read a couple of REI machinations being bandied around and called ' turnkey', even in this site, and its about time we provided a clarification of what this truly means, especially now that the Turnkey-reviews.com is now up and running.

This is going to sound stupid, but do I need a fax machine and number to do out of state investing, or is scanning and email sufficient to do business with most people?

I won't give advice, but I'll share my experience having gone through this personally, and having coached/mentored Hundreds of other Real Estate  Investors over the past 10 years: Single family rentals are tough enough in your back yard, and virtually impossible to manage well from afar.  

My income calculations are only for rent: ATM machine, vending machine, parking, laundry, red box, storage units, furnished apartments, pets, retail space, application fee's, & late fee's not included.