Majority of my clients who invest in the Columbia, SC market are actually out of state investors. 

It's not going to cause it to appraise for more as the appliances are considered "personal property" and not part of the actual property.

We service seller take back mortgages on investment properties and we have found that sellers can usually  get a higher sales price by holding the financing.

Also, at first glance, I thought that the alternate name they used, rentals2retirement was actually "Rent to Retirement", a company that I had researched here on BP.

What services are offered to have a real address for mail and potentially mail forwarding. 

Actually find out through that process that one of the tenants used their security deposit as rent one month.

The roof is serviceable, but likely has 5 yrs or less of life. 

New unemployment statistics indicate the region's jobless rate actually fell in April to 3% down from 3.5% in March and only slightly higher than 2.9% a year ago, according to figures from the Texas Workforce Commission.

I think the actual settings will vary if you are managing directly on platform or using third party softwares, etc.As mentioned above I think risking going vacant over a major holiday will outweight the extra housekeeping cost.Also, I am not sure how much volume you are doing but do not pay cleaners extra for holidays. 

If you provide specific services (called "substantial services", think hotel) then it’s considered a business and reported on Sch C (this is rare for an STR).