As far as her being humiliated in front of her kids, well she should get it together and pay her rent, and her kids should understand that when you don't pay rent as agreed you get kicked out of your rented house.

So I don't follow CO STR stuff other than basic reading posts here and some other places as well.I hear you that we are talking about primary residence STRs but that can change just as fast as non occupied IMHO.

They will normally charge you for desk space, using their printer, support from them and their office staff, Etc....Then there are MLS fees, Lock Box fees, Continuing Education costs, and the basic costs of running your own business.

I am considering doing this deal with no agents on either side to save money (savings the seller would pass on to me) - my buyers agent actually suggested that when I explained the situation to her and that I really only needed basic transactional help. 

As a PM with 65 units, ours are basically identical to that

So basically, after everything was done I got paid $1,120.4 to buy this house and created about 60k worth of equity in the process.

We are looking to get more cashflow in because if we have more kids, we might only rely on one W2 income (and more on the income from the rental houses).

They would pay us, the management company a small non-refundable annual fee that is basically a third of their traditional deposit.

Even if you occasionally get some college kids who wouldn't mind, that won't result in a steady stream of renters.

However, realistically.....most buyers are going to wait until after school lets out in most areas before they start looking to move so they don't risk moving their kids from their current school district.