Townhomes will have HOAs and you will need to make sure that they are VA approved.

Only major components are furnace and hot water tank..Condo Townhouses that have maintenance/hoa fees may or may not cover anything related to your actual townhouse so the owner is responsible for upkeep of the home like any other single family..Fee Simple Townhouse.. no maintenance fees..ownership is like any other single family with all relative maintenance..At the end of the day it depends on the ratios..Will the rental income support all expenses..

With sky high HOA fees and taxes, you can imagine that this has hurt us financially.

However as of fall 2020 they started having various excuses of not being able to pay full rent, among some other problems like we were getting several HOA fines for them not putting trash away, lawn not maintained, they had us do several repairs.

@Patrick Parker we manage about 500 doors and we require ddls (digital door locks) on all of them as long as it's permitted by the HOA and feasible (some older style/antique doors cannot accommodate a DDL.) 

Or a lovely condo in Scottsdale (that will most likely have an HOA requirement of 30-day rentals).Be aware that we have a very competitive market right now, due to low interest rates, people moving here in record numbers and limited housing inventory.

Expenses - Principle, Interest, Taxes, Insurance, HOA fees5.  

Are you looking at an HOA relationship or a Landlord/tenant relationship?

Hypothetically, if you are choosing to go with a condo as a rental property, the HOA (and for discussion purposes lets assume the HOA has solid and sound financials and isn't strapped for cash/using a special assessment often to cover expenses) will be covering the large CapEx of you unit like roof or siding from their community funds.

They pay approximately $995 a month in principal, interest, taxes, insurance and HOA.