Also there are plenty of rent scammers out there saying they have a rental and collecting app fees on a ghost house and sometimes even getting a deposit.

My place sleeps a lot, and so, is often rented by large groups of "friends", no one with a majority stake in the collective negative outcomes of their behavior. 

It is increasingly common for a PM to charge a "leasing fee" which covers all the costs of marketing, showing, screening, placing tenant under contract, collecting deposit and rent, setting up utilities, getting the tenant placed, etc.If the PM can't justify the cost, then they shouldn't be charging it.

Personally the only thing I find awkward about it is that you have to "invite" people to fill out the application or pre-application by their email or phone, I'd rather have a link to apply that I could post on my listings rather than have people message me then I have to collect the email, then send them the application, but that's just a minor inconvenience for me.

This way, maintenance, repairs, and taxes are the responsibility of the new owner, while you continue to collect principal and interest, potentially as tax-free income.I'm not a CPA, just a heads-up 😄, but you could possibly avoid capital gains tax with this approach.

Can I still make an LLC and just collect the rent and put the maintenance and mortgage payments through that LLC?

If they trash your place and you send them to collections, they won't care because their credit is already bad.If mom and the son were living together, and mom had really good credit, then there may be some wiggle room to consider them.

Remember, if you have to carry a gun to collect rent, you made a bad investment decision.

As a property manager I had every incentive to collect before paying out the owners.  

@David Butler I listened to the episode and I didn’t get that impression at all.