The VA loan is terribly expensive with it's funding fee, and the process can be pretty painful, but if you can pull that off and obliterate your housing cost/potentially cash flow, appreciate, depreciate, and build equity for no money down that is pretty tough to beat.  

In my case, although painful the first week, it ended well for me and I was prepared.

You can get out of paying it by showing you sold it, but it is still a pain. 

There will always be things outside your control that can derail any business (health, relationships, politics, natural disaster, etc).More important is to find a good mentor that will teach you how to develop leads.

My parents have decided to let me live with them for the foreseeable future since they're having health issues (nothing serious or expensive) so they've given me a time limit of 5 years.

I understand they have more tenant turnover, students can be rougher on property than more mature and possibly responsible adults, and that the summer is a high probability vacancy (shorter duration lease) as most STR tenants will want something better than student housing and it would be a pain to furnish/unfurnish for the short out of school year.  

But the language about audits and maintenance of records requirements (at my expense) is one of the things concerns me... sounds like a pain.   

If the tenant still lives there or if the owner of the home still lives there how big of a pain is it to have them evicted?

Regardless of how you think the process and renovation is going to go, it's good to remember this:It's always going to take long, cost more, and be more of a pain in the butt than you anticipate.Good luck! 

Just not worth it, but I feel your pain.