And of course simply have it demo-ed.

@Eddie T.7 of the 8 are in my 'backyard', in the Phoenix area.  

This a great option for high income earners who simply do not have the time for real estate.

I tell my clients all the time that the quality of your property will directly determine the quality of your tenants.This is a very important rental property investing fundamental most new investors always forget or ignore simply because they are just too desperate for  "Cash-Flow".

Jay what you've got to understand about Josh is the fact he is simply lying.  

If I had been tracking the assets via accounting, I would simply make a journal entry showing the LLC's assets and liabilities going to zero and transferring them to the Holding LLC or the LLC Members.

Is it best to simply increase rent by a fixed amount (e.g., $700) to cover this, or are there other strategies for handling utilities in this situation?

Will they be doing other types of work like getting through the financing, becoming the guarantor, finding the deals, crunching the numbers, doing the accounting, or are they just simply doing less work?

For consulting with a CPA.As mentioned above you can simply take monthly distributions, but what is most important is how you are set up. 

It simply depends on your time frame, when you want to actually begin renting the property out short term, and what the loan terms are.