For a less expensive approach, an owner can handle the front-end advertising and booking themselves and hire a property manager to handle check-in and check-out, cleaning and repairs.  

I ran the numbers with the latest interest rate and removed the common area cleaning & snow removal cost as i live in Minot. 

If it's not huge, well then maybe best to do exactly what you said, and leverage your super host status on another deal and move on as cleanly as you can.Can't the property owner just file the permit for you and you pay him an additional cut? 

I think being near the Orange Circle and renting to students would be one of the benefits of renting to new cycles of tenants, but of course, there's the added cost of keeping the property clean and destruction-free.

What if he's nuttier than squirrel poop but keeps a pretty clean home and pays his bills on time?

Take it as a learning experience and clean up your bookkeeping practices.

To get the best tenants, buy in good neighborhoods and make sure your house is well maintained and clean going in.Bob

Inside I have done painting and new flooring, bathroom tile cleaning and grout as needed etc.

We ran title and tax lien searches and they were clean. 

Very clean, the ladies are not cat ladies lol but the apartments were almost bare, very little furniture and a tiny tiny TV on the least expensive stand I've ever seen.