But if they don't then the monthly cost of one "house meter" 's worth of heat will be much more cost effective than time spent mitigating the damage of a potential frozen or busted pipe come winter time. 

Starting out I always recommend being driving distance from home to mitigate risk, but you will also hear about success stories from investing out of state. 

And forcing appreciation with property improvements can provide additional risk mitigation.

It will be short term capital gains though hence I hope you have some strategies to mitigate the tax burden such as being a real estate professional according to the tax code, utilizing cost segregation studies, or possibly utilizing the short term rental looppole. 

I hear ya man and understand the fear, but all of your fears can also be mitigated by having adequate reserves and renting out places in a high demand area.

Instead of planning for a disaster cleanup, prepare to mitigate that risk. 

Obviously, I'm just trying to mitigate my risks as much as possible and, since I'm dealing with highly motivated sellers, I can often dictate a lot of the terms. 

In addition, diversify your holdings between different asset classes to mitigate the downside in any riskier asset class.

I will rent to a tenant with bad credit as long as everything else looks good (debt:income ratio, Landlord references, etc.) and mitigate my risk with a higher deposit.

I'm very curious how this will pass safety tests...... getting in a significant accidents will cause the occupants to absorb all that kinetic energy and air bags etc can only mitigate some of that.