John -
We don't rent our place out. We bought something that fit our "snowflake" needs and thus bought a resale Patio Villa. Smaller equals less in just about every category: smaller lawn, smaller physical house (less upkeep effort and on-going costs for utilities, taxes and so forth)....and smaller living space. The size helps keep our outgo fairly low. It works for us!
Redwitch watches over our place while we're away which works out great. We hire out all the service work: lawn and landscaping care, pest and termite control, and so forth. Got most of those referrals from our new neighbors and from the previous owners. There was a fellow already established with others in the neighborhood for doing exterior power washing once or twice a year so we hopped on that wagon as well.
If you ever go back through my posts, one of my earliest threads last fall mentioned our concerns of owning a place "long distance". It's pretty much turned out to be a non-event - everything's worked out fine for us with no worries or concerns. I sleep a lot better at night than I thought I would!
We had a similar thought process as you've had - we really hadn't been too focused on purchasing a home since we only get to TV 3 or 4 times a year for a week or two at a time. But we figured it was best to buy while the prices were advantageous for the buyer. We're not sorry we did.
Bill
