You want to make it very easy for the tenants to renew early (limits their leverage) and inconvenient to leave.  

If you get the right people renting, like a business that stores material, its easy money. 9/10 people will want to use it as their personal workshop or to work on their junk cars, avoid them.

It is more economical to do it all at once.Winterizing often leaves you with some cracked fittings or faucets in the basement, which are easy to replace, but the main goal is to preserve the water heater, toilets and the in wall plumbing from frost damage.

Andrew,Another option would be to do part of the labor yourself for example tearing off the old roof on a house that small should be an easy one day job.

Wish it was that easy!

It's definitely not easy but you can certainly find some great rentals in the area. 

that should be easy there is only about 5 million of us brokers in CA.. :) good luck with it..

We have delayed planning and paying for our wedding until our living situation can improve.

They are both retired, so not so easy for them to use Yelp and such. 

Their process is easy and you can get your HELOC within 2 weeks.