In that case, a premium can help discourage back-to-back bookings or at least bring in more revenue that could help with operational costs....While a premiumcan be put in place so that adjacent days are less attractive to guests, there's no guarantee that guests won't book these days, and your regular listing maximum price will still be in effect (though that can be adjusted with Date Specific Overrides).

And, for those people who have more time than money, they can put in sweat equity into directly owned real estate.

That neighbor is a distraction. 

it seems like the potential buyer might want to have you put in some spec items that you normally do not offer to customers. 

It is much easier to use their online business account application and just put my name there as the indirect account owner, and put in the 401K's EIN instead of the LLC's EIN.

Hey so it'swater/sewer - put in owners name and you can back bill the tenants.electric / gas - this can go right into the tenants name.trash - this is included in the taxes

There is a ton more and of course if the owner decides not to renew, you have to move out all the stuff you put in and store it.

In fact, all the worst tenants I ever got were once put in by property managers. 

I have committed myself to being as educated as possible so that when I have put in a few years of self-management I can then select and manage a good PM.

That said, long-term the appreciation you get in the Puget Sound region is superior to many other markets, so assuming you find an excellent property management company that is able to screen tenants and only put in very well qualified, vetted occupants and you experience limited issues over the holding period, you'd likely come out ahead retaining the Mill Creek property if your financially able to do so and still buy wherever you are headed out of state.