I have a co-worker who does nothing but house hacking and owns several properties with two units per house. 

Hey there, I'm looking for anyone who converted a house to a co-living setup in Oregon or even more specific, SW Portland in Washington County.

Seems more like a co-op setup if you think of it; just worse.

Here, a Co-Op marketed an "Investment Program" of notes paid at variable interest rates on demand after a lock-out period. 

What right does a co-owner (or lifetime estate tenant) have to the equity of a home?

You can also get a co borrower to help. 

If they 100% cant qualify without a co-signer and the co-signer doesn't qualify then they are out of luck. 

We'd love to hear about your own experiences and tips for making a Co-Living business successful.

I had discussions with a co-worker all bent out of shape that his landlord who had a duplex, takes the gas bills, and divides it by half, and have him pay his share.

I have already seen the new forms/addendums that will be used here in Arizona, the common one for this will be the Seller Compensation Addendum.The one thing that might happen in your discount buyer agent scenario is you might get a buyers agent who agrees to a lower commission and then the listing agent is offering a co-broke that is higher than he agreed to, well now that buyers agent will only be able to get paid the lower amount he agreed to and the listing agent will keep the remainder, so listing agents could end up getting paid more.As far as your question on what to pay an agent, I view it similarly to hiring an attorney, there are discount attorney's and they might be okay for some people in some circumstances, or if you know the proper procedures and deadlines then maybe you do it on your own without an attorney.