Since it's the holiday season, most of them are on holiday leave so it's a skeleton crew. 

Will you provide a porta potty, or not (think trips back and forth to the nearest convenience store or gas station, or worst-case, they use a corner in the backyard, which leaves the wrong impression on your neighbors)? 

She ended up leaving early because the neighbors were harassing her.

Never leave cash sitting in real estate doing nothing. 

If the tenants chose to leave they must give a 30 day notice prior to leaving.

Just put money there and leave it.

At the time, I had no idea how to set up a system for long-distance investing so never pulled the trigger.Now that I live in the Midwest, I am interested in building a real estate portfolio to help with retirement and to leave a legacy for my kids.

I was all in at $140,000 (including reno and closing costs) and am working on refinancing $50,000 back out of it at the moment which will leave about $90,000 in the property.

Leave the %'s to the Stock Market.2 - Makes you think a bad deal is good, or just as bad...3 - Making you think a good deal is bad.I know, it's "just a general rule of thumb". 

Raising rent isn't going to make them leave as long as they aren't going to find a better deal up the street.