Properties in climates with hard freezes require more maintenance than properties in milder climates.

You can freeze the card with the bank if issues come up, but you can't reject partial payments since its meant for business employees to deposit revenue.

Or a new cooktop for 75 or getting paid 70 dollars for the fridge's water freezing up.  

These were usually houses that didn't sell and the listing expired, I called owner directly or knocked on their door, craigslist for-sale-by-owner, or it was October/ November, and the seller knows they won't sell a house now until the spring because winter is coming (I'm in upstate, NY), and nobody leaves their house when it's freezing out. 

There's also portable units that will do up to 12-14k btu heat and cool for $200-300 but they are typically not as good as ductless systems for heating when the temperature drops below freezing.

Every time someone quotes me higher than that, I'll just politely get off the phone.When I have to replace boiler lines/radiators, I get scrappers to come in and remove it for free (they want the scrap as payment).In the one scenario where I had to pull all of it (freeze nightmare) I simply used that opportunity to replace with furnace and ductwork, cost me about $3k total to redo a five bed two bath house (I ran the new ductwork through the house myself, saved about $1500).I don't know how this would translate to your market, but I was quoted for removal of boiler, replacement with furnace at about $15k by a contractor that I respect, but that won't be getting any work in my rentals.

But coming from a freezing cold, liberal mecca (haha) like Madison to that might be too much.

You'd freeze to death.

I once caught my upstairs tenants turning off the heat in December, which could have caused the pipes to freeze. 

I have also seen heating cables to melt the snow and the cable goes some ways into the drain so it doesn't freeze.