The owners actually look forward to firing people.

@Michael Anderson If the property had been sold, it would make sense to formally assign the lease and deposit to the new owner and memorialize an agreement to collect and adjust rents after settlement, indemnify the other party for things arising during their respective ownership periods, etc. 

I'm keen to connect with fellow STR owners in the area to gather insights on the ease of finding cleaning services and associated running costs.

Why did the previous owner sell it for only $85,000?

She has a duplex, one unit was owner occupied until her stroke; other had been rented until the same timeframe.

Go to Etsy and search for "rental property tracker," and you will find hundreds of nice spreadsheets to track 10-20 rentals, usually for under $10.Software has extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button, and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports.

I recently attended @Michael Ealy 's FREE seminar where you learned how to do all this and more without buying anything.I also attended a $2k course where I learned more in a weekend then my entire business school experience.A business owner I work for recently spent $20k on one of these scams.

So yes, correct, the borrower is the USER not the owner, the bank/lender is the "owner" right.

There's no benefit to the owner. 

The owner is willing to take a cash offer for asking, or a little under.