GM, I imagine it's probably different in your industry. This class was for property managers so most of it is in the context of reps who are giving you bids for products/services. Much of the problem arises from the fact that the property manager is acting as an agent for the property owner, so it's not actually "your" money, and that property value is usually based on net income, so if costs increase more than necessary you are actually decreasing the value of the owner's asset (which is a violation of your fiduciary responsibility), and that the majority of costs are passed to the tenants in the form of rent, so when they increase without an actual increase in services, it makes the property a less attractive place to lease, which reduces income because you can't get/keep tenants, which again hurts the NOI and property value. SO if you are taking a higher bid price and receiving personal gain, everyone besides you is getting hurt.