When I landed in Cleveland and arrived at the property, I ensured that all the locks were changed and that in itself costed around 200-300 dollars. 

Your agent should be willing to have a thorough and candid conversation to arrive a a commission structure with which you're both happy.

Unless it is a leak I have now had two separate tenants tell me they had a little leak only to arrive and find flowing water in my property.

I state my place in the course because I find it ironic that we have just now arrived to the part about criminal background.

-Do a combination of the two - list my house on Zillow for under $2000 to quickly secure a tenant for a 6 month rental starting in September and then once April arrives, put the house on Airbnb.  

I have also actually just arrived here (yesterday) and plan to look at some things through Jan/Feb, hopefully pick up a few places in the new year.These are just my opinions and I haven't really made this work yet - so take what I say with a grain of salt.

The property was listed for $250k, but sold for $70k less....so in this instance an offer $70k lower would be perfectly reasonable, as would have been even a lower number to finally arrive at that sales price.Lets say though a property priced the same at $250k is underpriced to draw in 5 or 10 offers, and is expected to sell for $50k over the list price. 

Thanks for the nod @Andrew Magoun@Jon Mccarthy If you arrive here in February and don't immediately try and re-board your same flight out of what by then will likely be an arctic tundra, well, you'll have made it past the hard part :-)\

How are they arriving at value?

I want to arrive on Friday and probably leave (check-out) on Sunday.