Homes like you are describing are a bit of a lifestyle for awhile (not a bad thing as long as you know that is what you are doing for the weekends and with your free money).   

Expect to be a landlord versus money for nothing/ Passive income.

I own some land in OBX and for years wanted to buy a rental property, but the reality is if it is strictly for rental purposes, you will not make money.

Or Cash-out refi, but have that money just sit in my bank account until I return to the states?

Where do you get the money to pay for the mortgage for those months it sits empty?

While these fees are higher than purchasing another rental property, it's a tradeoff to investing in a passive real estate investment and not having to put more money into capital calls if there were big ticket items needing repairs in a rental.Conner JacksonTangible Wealth Solutions

If you can build AI to compile all information about a homeowner to score and rank homeowners based on their likelihood to be motivated I would pay good money for that.

Multiple, billion dollar companies are investing substantial amounts of money into our area, such as Intel, Google, and Amazon.

If you would not live in the property, it is hard to get good tenants that would so your vacancy and bad debt will be higher than expected (costing you money).I'd be happy to have a phone call with you. 

@Aspen JayIt doesn't seem like the numbers make sense unless you can put more money down to lower the monthly payment which I'm assuming that is the largest part of your expenses.