If nobody lives in the house there will be a smell as well from it being locked up.Sorry to tell you this, but your house also has an unpleasant smell to it, just like anybody elses.

@Jason Ma My partner and I are in a small market 2.5 hours North of Indy in a town called Warsaw that is home to 3 major Orthopaedic/Medical Device companies.

Flooring started Sat, & I'm guessing there is about 2 more days left (vinyl click-lock from Costco -- looks great, but takes a bit longer than laminate).

@Ofir Rushinek It all depends, there are some GREAT pockets in Spring Park 32207, and some that are a DMZ, but if you can find a brick or block home in the neighborhood, lock it in!

PattiThanks so much for the information about the utilities that definitely changes the deal.Question do you find that it is beneficial to equip your homes with energy saving devices.

I can call a locksmith to pick up the lock box, but who will I send to the property to meet them?

Not exact, but if tenant A uses 1000 gal and tenant B uses 500 gal, A is 95% likely using 2x the water as B.The setup was the flowmeter on the tank (DM me and I can send info), then a wire to a parallel meter in an outside lock box.Once a month I read, get the water/sewer bill, take 80% for tenant use, use a XLS to do pro-rates and then do a mail merge to send a separate billing to each.The idea is to decrease water use. 

Like changing locks, hard wood floors, etc..You can also put and add out for cleaning...

Even with the decreased interest rate, you are locking yourself into a higher monthly payment when you could stay with the 30 yr and overpay as much as you want to have it paid off in 15 years as well. 

My line of thought being that at least I could "lock-in" the mortgage (which I can control) at a lower cost to help keep my overall payments from getting out of control.