The problem is we have approximately 2 weeks of travel coming up for July, and we need time between their tenancy and the next to do some updates (paint, new flooring, new water heater), and I don't want the house to sit vacant while I'm out of town.  

I can easily clean and turn over her unit quickly in my market for more rent than she is paying.

We are often able to keep turn over costs in the $500 -$1000 range and that is for larger 2500 sf + single family homes, some of which have two story great rooms.My PM fees vary based on how many units an owner is giving me, and where the property is located etc, but are more than what you're paying but I probably include a lot more services.I offer performance guarantees, but there is no way I would have a Management Agreement that just allowed an owner to walk - they would owe me the remainder term fees if that happened.There is no way I would as an investor, pay tenant utilities at all - if the utilities were not separately metered, I would first determine if I could legally charge the tenants for the utilities in your area or I would not buy the property.There are many things you can do in a lease to protect yourself and reduce your costs (and that may be an issue with your PM's lack of experience - or it could be that your state is very landlord unfriendly) but here are a few items I would have in the lease if allowed in your area:The tenant must thoroughly clean the unit including any carpeting at move-out - we have a detailed example list of tenant cleaning responsibilities in our tenant handbook.We only accept the most financially highly qualified tenants, and often have tenants renew leases, but if a tenant wants or needs to break their lease early, there is a multi month Early Termination fee to help us defray off market time and turnkey make-ready costs due to early termination.Our tenants are responsible for both Pest/insect control and exterior landscape upkeep - though in an inner city townhouse/triplex set up tenant responsible landscape may not be feasible.

Tuckpointing requires setting up scaffolding, then cleaning and pointing, and then tear down scaffolding.

The deposit is your leverage to ensure they pay last month's rent and leave the place clean.

I plan to turn floors 2-4 into apartments, so around 12 units.

Interior/exterior paint and siding work, windows and doors, complete kitchen, complete bathroom, some interior flooring.

This house also is complete with a garage and finished basement area(newly renovated) on the first floor.

We ended up rehabbing it because we were going to live there for a few years, new floors, bathroom, vanities, lights, paint, cabinets, appliances, everything, (cost 26k)...... long story short we bought a larger home for our family of twins and two golden retrievers.  

There is no elevator, does the basement units classify as "ground floor units" ?