I just wanted to hear people's thoughts on whether to look for a house hack opportunity or to keep renting and look for a rental property deal.

- Each Housing Commission sets their own rent rates, based upon market rents for Class C properties in their area.You should be able to find an online list of S8 rents per bedroom for your area.

One of them accidentally paid for January rent because of auto pay and is now requesting it back.

During the time deployed (last 4 yrs), I rented the home.  

 - recognize you are combining 2 if the highest effory rent models: student rental and rent by room. 

But once I got the bills, I increased the rent with the tenant's approval and signed an addendum to the lease stating the rent increase would be X and the owner would take over utilities.

Single family homes are exempt from rent control when privately owned.  

In my experience that's not actually the case at least in legitimate evictions for non-payment of rent or breach of another part of the lease.  

You’re not using a PM, AND you’re assuming you can charge a service animal a deposit and pet rent?

I just had tenants move out of my investment property (duplex) without paying for the last month's rent, and the damage they inflicted onto the property exceeds their security deposit amount.