I understand that the rental seasons may be longer around Asheville/Brevard, than in Highlands/Cashiers given the more mild climate?  

I am wondering if CC&R and bylaws belong to the public records at respective county.

Consider long term costs.Central unit(s) belong to you, are maintained by you, and you need to provide power and pay that bill.Window units, even if you provide them, at least place the operation power usage on the tenant.If you clearly note in the rental agreement that "the window units are a gift to the tenant", then maintenance is off-load too.Frequently, the long term costs have a larger impact to your PnL than the cash outlay for the equipment itself.

These have all been owner-occupied properties that mostly belong to our group.

The deposits belong to the tenants.

I too asked that of a local agent that is part of a RE investment group I belong to and she was great at getting me some information and discussing the very same thing.What she mentioned about the schooling was it works for some just to do the online but others need/want that classroom atmosphere to get answers quickly.

They have a big trash bin outside and starting to throw away some things/ belongings.

It wont be long before there's an up-tick in cost, and a decrease in availability.

But then more than all of that, even if I wasn't too stressed about all of those things, the saturation in general there has gotten pretty high and it has caused my vacancy times to be longer than they used to be.

"Steady income" and "newly licensed real estate professional" don't belong in the same paragraph.