They paired me up with a member service advisor for 60 days, who checks in on you once a week and helps find content for you and keeps you accountable.

These typically include services like renters insurance, HVAC filter delivery, pest control, and sometimes utility management.

They repeatedly charge me for cleaning services while my property has been vacant for 2+ months.

See responses to your questions below: Correct, California is uniqueTo qualify for REPS you need to meet a number of criteria, including (but STRs that meet IRS criteria generally don't need REPS to leverage tax benefits): More than 50 percent of his/her time working in real property businesses; AND, More than 750 hours of service during the year.

This means you need to pad your rehab costs, make sure you have trusted service providers that do great work, and when you run comps be sure to bring them down a bit and see if the deal still makes sense. 

Utilities are OFTEN overlooked so reach out to power, telecom, gas (or go all electric), water, and sewer to make sure you understand what it would take to get separately metered services from the primary house.

Let me know if I can be of service.  

Having a lease in place will help you as well - some lenders won't refi a vacant property.For your refi, you're usually looking at 75-80% max LTV with a debt service loan.

Quote from @Nadine Wallace: You can do simplisafe with/without Wi-Fi, but you will need cellular service.

I would suggest a good PM to start if you don't have a solid background in hospitality or at least something in the service industry.Self-managing can save a ton of money if you know what you are doing.