I was thinking about letting my kids live here and doing my normal routine here, letting them remain in school here, and just going "home" 4-5 nights a week and coming back before they wake up.

I gave my $300,000 move-in ready beautiful vacant home to this large well known local co in Oct 2016.( Ive owned and self-managed another very similar rental in the same subdivision-- since 1998--and it has never had one day of vacancy in 16 years-- rented at $1860.)This professional pm co put all utilities in their name on my new property and turned the hot water heater ON and the Water ON ( even tho the main water cutoff valve is easily accessible in the coat closet beside the garage, the entire 3 months they 'managed it').They let the property sit VACANT OCT-NOVand on their "routine inspection on Dec 1, to make sure hobos had not moved in" they SAW the water heater in the garage was spewing (at full blast) A 20' stream/ fountain of HOT WATERand that the entire finished closed garage was covered COVERED !!

Be sure to differentiate "normal wear & tear" from damages.If you have a routine for move-outs, all of that is 'normal', eg: cleaning carpets. 

That should  be a 'once in your life due to a family emergency thing,' not a normal routine way to pay rent.

Consider what I saw routinely - a teenage girl has a baby out of wedlock, works part time and gets 1,000 of EIC.

@Joe Splitrock  good catch.having been in the finance side of distressed assets for more than a few decades I see this stuff routinely.. you should see the 5 hoarder houses I bought this year... stuffed to the rafters with stuff stink so bad you need a bunny suit..

Routinely they're referred to as "private lenders" or "portfolio lenders,"  I like to think of them more as specialty lenders. 

I'll take on all routine maintenance, taking that time/money as my expense and not yours.I'm addressing local rules/regs by _____________ (such as if short term <30 day rentals are banned in the area, you focus on >30 day tenant white collar professionals... consultants on 6 month contracts, travelling nurses, gov't workers getting a per diem, etc)All you've got to do Mr Landlord is cash an extra $2400/yr in rent checks and enjoy not having any 2 AM "Hey Mr.

Same goes for air filters that are not routinely replaced. 

I have spent most of my life moving routinely, and plan to do so for the rest of my life.