The Residential Tenancies Act sets the rules a distant landlord still has to follow, deposits, notice periods and rent increases among them, and being unavailable to respond quickly to a maintenance issue is a common way an out of town landlord ends up in a dispute.
Financially, the Canada Revenue Agency treats a change to rental use as a deemed disposition at fair market value on the change date, and refinancing a rental afterward is capped at 80 percent of value, so the numbers need to work on their own, not just as a bet on future appreciation.
A hand-reviewed valuation gives you the market number both decisions depend on. Get your hand-reviewed valuation from Joel Dyck.