Although I am relatively new to REI myself (looking for my third deal now) I am more than happy to try to answer any questions you may have and get you in touch with some of the people (realtors, lawyers, flooring guys, etc.) that I have met along the way.  

For the kitchen, we have already selected the wood floor color and we preferably want to keep the countertop.

We rent single family homes, so we have a conversation about yard maintenance, snow removal etc - have you don't this before, do you have the tools etcI also bring up house cleaning questions, by telling them we had a tenant who did not own a vacuum cleaner, did not know how to run a dishwasher, had a mess in the basement etc - and then see how they respond.That is a non-offensive way to talk about house cleaning and you'd be surprised how different the responses are.

Find out what a typical nightly rate is for your area (not what air bnb charges, the actual nightly rate the owner will receive not including the cleaning fee).

I had to upgrade the waterlines to 3/4 (ripping out the wall, retiling) and replace the drain line with metal pipe, (dig up floor, plumb, concrete, retile).  

The numbers will be lower, but yes you won't be waiting to see bookings come through and you won't have to clean rooms (takes us about 10 minutes) between stays.

That is an entirely different thing.A distressed property is a circumstance.Motivation is an emotional response to a circumstance.Tall grass, tons of mailers on the floor—these are circumstances.

Occupying 8,000 square feet indoors and 2,000 square feet on a third-floor patio, this will be the largest In-N-Out in the world.

It wasn't the messiest thing I've seen, but still required clean up on my end which the clients weren't happy about at all.The third client is a self employed hair dresser and she compained of poor communication, inability to understand what they wanted form her and complete confusion over their payroll directions.For the price paid, I'd say the results were mediocre at best.

If it were me, I would get them out now so you can clean/renovate during the winter and get it on the market in early Spring.