Then payout when certain milestones are met (ie. 100% complete on rooms or line items, not perceived progress). 

Does anyone have a material price estimate sheet for items like flooring, paint interior/exterior, and basic wood siding etc. or have a suggestions as to where I can find one? 

Although I have found one or two providers that seem to fit this criteria, I have found a lot more that says their properties have “at least 5 years left on the CapEx items”.

Now-a-days I have my clients complete the Uniform Residential Loan Application b/c of questions and back-and-forth exactly like this, but I used to do it for my clients based on their paperwork as a "customer service" thing (I was trained to do this by "elders" that had been writing mortgages pre-2008, so as a "customer service" thing they had always put in that everyone makes $25k/mo as a janitor, right?)

Short-term rental would need to cover additional items such as utilities, yard and snow, netflix/hulu, etc.

Once your tenant is selected there is very little time to devote to your investment, other then respond to maintenance items.  

The program provides participants with world-class training & a continuous learning environment.

Small time landlords who were ‘managing’ their own properties and did not have reserves to stay afloat during this time and kept putting off all the maintanence items over the years just wanted to get rid of their properties. 6 of my 8 units acquired in the past 6 months were tired landlords and the remaining 2 units were from a friend who owned a property for over a year and did not have time to fix it.

It's already overwhelming for them to move so 80% of what you tell them will be forgotten and the paperwork could be shoved in a box and lost.I prefer to give them an email a week after they move in that has some key reminders about their lease, how to dispose of large items like broken furniture, how to submit maintenance requests, etc.

I’m confident value can be increased, but not totally confident in operations/management.Anyone else doing out of state storage and have any advice of important items to do/not so?