@Aaron LandauScreening tenants is probably the MOST important steps of renting a property.

The land value would be your "cost basis" or the value of the property when you bought it.I'm not a tax accountant, but I don't know if you can just "add" the cost of the improvements to the purchase price as those "improvements" probably have their own useful lives (e.g., putting on a new roof) that may be shorter than 27.5 years (or however many years you have left).

Food for thought: Scranton, PA is just as close or closer that Albany depending on your locale and probably more landlord friendly.

Quote from @Jonathan Greene: @David Lecko probably knows of one.

99% of the time an owner occupant is going to pay you a higher amount than an investor/landlord, so it probably won’t come up. 

But now realize despite an IDEAL location in North Scottsdale it's probably just too big to winter in for 3 months (3500 feet).  

Hello Brandon, As it was said above, probably is best to stick with the standard landscaping, adding some new grass and mulch makes a big difference.

Ryan nailed it - creating and enforcing house rules is probably the biggest key to success in rent by the room / coliving.Include house rules in your lease - point to the lease when someone breaks the rules / causing issues.

If you want to stay in your house, then your only option would be to leverage equity which will probably be in the 8-10% interest rate range.Not knowing the entire situation, I think you could consider downsizing and then using the proceeds to buy a 2-4 unit property and start making $40-75K right away with still no debt. 

In hindsight, I probably should have rented the house and held it for a few years through the boom of the early 2020s.