@Christopher Owens, Accessory Dwell Unit (ADU) when you live in par the house, and rent the second half.Detached ADU (when something is built in the backyard or so)Mother-in-law, this is pretty much a guest house or in-law suit.There are different forms of house hack and these are three forms.I am happy to share more 

Arlington county has pretty decent accessory dwelling unit (ADU) regulations, and Fairfax county also recently eased restrictions (still stricter than arlington), so you may have some success there too. 

When tourism picks back up get an accessory permit and STR the other side.

Why would you book a stay in the place if you see in the pictures it has an old kitchen, missing necessary appliances, accessories, etc?

We all need to live some place, so you might as well start building equity, and reducing your housing cost to start.Some strategies to househack include....1) Multifamily 2) Rent by the Room3) ADU - Accessory Dwelling Unit.Each of these 3 strategies will have prime and non-prime locations in the metro area.

You can also build an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) that's completely separate from the main single family home, but the permitting process in Arlington is a hot mess- my neighbor a couple houses down had his ADU permit take 13 months...so up to you on what's worth your time.

(Accessory Dwelling Units).

The property is zoned R-6 and in the Citizens Guide to Residential Zoning Districts & Regulations on the Richmond City website R-6 properties allow for "One dwelling unit located in an accessory building, containing two or more stories (lawfully existing prior to the date of this section), with conditions" ... which to your point sounds like accessory units are only "grandfathered in" .. still I will reach out to the planning department for more information.

I don't know what their specific zoning laws are but California is pushing to make it easier to have in law units sometimes called ADU for accessory dwelling units.

Ideally, I would love for it to be a house-hack that allows me to live for much cheaper especially because I am in an expensive market (Long Island) In my search for duplexes i see that some are listed as “legal 2 families” while others are listed as “accessory apartments”.