The GC should help you determine the scope of work and provide a list of materials based on your goals (e.g., rental vs. flip) and the property's target market.

Big military base and probably lots of border trade if that continues.

The Cape also in my opinion is oversaturated with STR's so it's challenging to find a base number of how your property will perform. 

All in all - owning a place to rent to other people is a business, and business decisions need to be made based on that cold hard facts and not on an emotional basis, unless someone wants to quickly go out of business.

Based on your assessment, it feels like the only way for you to buy something now is to make a compromise that you don't want to make or to get out over your skis a bit more than you'd like. 20 years from now, it won't make much of a difference whether you bought something today or two years from now. 

The only good use I can see of the fees are based on rent charged would be for a tenant to purchase it and charge themselves $0 or near $0 rent to avoid the rent based charges. 

How about the simple obvious that the inputs to deliver the service/product have a base-line and market prices have, OBVIOUSLY, been at about as lean of operating profit margins as can be. 

Here’s some feedback based on your situation:House hacking is a fantastic way to reduce housing costs while building equity.

Then the tenant will rant a bunch of nonsense, have no evidence to back up his stories, and the judge will find in your favor based on the evidence provided by you.For future tenants, I highly recommend you read a book like mine or "Every Landlord's Legal Guide" by NOLO.

If it were me, I’d double-check the furnace to cover all bases (maybe bring in a second opinion) and document everything.