But first-time deals are not ripe for seller financing most of the time because new investors think you get your cake and eat it too.

My car payment is pretty reasonable ($366/month) so that wasn't in my original plan and eats into my cash for furniture/incidentals. 

As @Michael Baum suggested, the amount of work doesn't change with the seasons, nor does the length of stay, as @Theresa Harris mentioned.My question is... in order to compete with lower total trip costs from other listings (often resulting from lower cleaning fees), should I eat a part of the cleaning fee in order to have a lower total trip cost?

That's a whole different animal....then you assume all of the risk and liability.

But he still must eat and if he comes home to the door and starts munching the tuna maybe you can grab him then and scoot him inside?

People eat it up.

How many animals do you have?   

You need an Eat what you Kill mentality if you take this path.  

If that syndication doesn't work as well as you hope, then you're eating interest.

Would you offer higher, like $450k, and just eat the water and electric until the leases renew and you can adjust that out?