Wood steps are definitely an option I am considering. 

anything in particular you'd do differently with your near term hind sight?

The speaker was saying that the trend where decorating consisted of using earth tone colors has long passed and the new trend is to go with gray colors and everything should be square like kitchen cabinet doors are not flush and square, door knobs and handles are now square, bathroom towel racks are square, paint on walls is gray fencing in not longer vertical and everyone is going with horizontal wood fencing, outside walls on properties is gray.Personally, I disagree with the decorating and I hate gray walls inside a house with a passion.

Instead we ended up replacing the columns with wood and replacing the railing with a PVC handrail.  

The following month new repair requests continued to flood the PM office and as of today, there is no end in sight.

((Knock on wood)) it has never needed a repair. 

If you do place a camera inside the property, per AirBNB rules it must be out in the open in plain sight.

Currently living overseas, so purchase will likely be sight unseen.

Apparently a unicorn sighting....I just got this email from this website.

It is easy to get sucked in and lose sight of everything around you.