Your property management company should be doing their due diligence to check on vacant units regularly, especially after a certain period, and keeping you informed during the vacancy.Unfortunately, when it comes to damages caused by a squatter, those typically fall on the property owner, unless your management agreement specifies otherwise (it likely does not).

I live in the Tahoe takes regular upkeep from the snow to the intense sun to wildfire risks. 

Regular sale, where you have to pay for pre-sale rehab, commission (5-6%), tax (20-30%), and recapture of depreciation.2.

Most of us who own RE came into it from somewhere else - either from working a regular job and squirreling away investment money into RE or working in a RE career and acquiring properties in the process. 5.

Now the rents have skyrocketed over the past year and we find we could be renting to a regular sized family for about $200 less than what we get now!

But then, you have to inspect regularly and become the couch police.

Use the "extra" income to build a reserve for maintenance, vacancies, and other expenses that don't happen regularly.

Keep in mind the other homes on the market may all be over-priced at the moment, which is why it's important to watch the market regularly and build a strong sense of what it's doing.

It's a regular response to help someone.

Then I get the prospective clients making 6 figures on their regular job but they're still swapping out doors on kitchen cabinets or fixing toilet guts in the evenings and can't see the forest through the trees yet.