Given that you'll be moving across the country, be VERY careful when screening prospects and only sign a lease if your background screening pans out and you have a good gut instinct on them. 

They have taken great care of our property, have paid for everything on time, and have been great communicators.

I know no one cares as much as the owner so I am trying to be fair before I fire them. 

@Dustin CornellJust be very careful with using notes and mortgages you find online.

We did not expect these carvings or deep scratches that looked like they just dragged things across the floors and didn't even care to use any caution. 

Just another way to avoid unwanted attention to yourself.

If someone has been taking care of it and try to claim it you will have to deal with the legal process of redemption or try to foreclose on it (this all depends on NY state law regarding tax liens)

Writing grandma a $2k check is better than one's inheritance going down by >$2k AND taking care of your elders is the right thing to do anyways. 

Some will care of nature of incident, others will be indifferent.We've gotten into a property that had a suicide by hanging in the garage and the next buyer felt it had nothing to do with them and didn't blink.Plan extra padding in your budget for worse case scenarios.

You can outsource marketing (any agent will list it), accounting (any CPA) but without relationship with Tenants you'll have constant problems.Such companies exist - they take phone calls 24/7 and then transfer them to PM to coordinate contractors.If you don't care about your bottom line, you can hire such a company: they will call to the most expensive plumber co, electric co, etc - you pay the money, they fix the problem.Fixing toilet would take you 10 min plus driving, they will call the plumbing company which takes $200 just to diagnose the issue (im not kidding - I've had such thing).