Common in most places, side by side with a common wall, each owns the land underneath......referred to as townhouses, 1/2 duplexes, row houses, etc. depending on location.  

My attorney tells me this is a very common practice to extract a higher settlement.

- I don’t know what the market is out there but it seems like $575 with all utilities included must mean rough building or neighborhood.

Hi Alison,I think this is a fairly common conundrum that you're in with anyone who owns property in a growing market and has a sizable equity stance.

From my perspective, what financial tools would be available to me to utilize this status for profit? 

Hello, I am a real estate agent in San Diego, I help a lot of investors with 1031's and it was recently brought to my attention that DST's and TIC's qualify for 1031 exchanges and I was curious to see if anyone had an...

Who is responsible for utilities?

You only divest yourself of loan ownership (AKA Liability/Responsibility) by payoff (Outside of stuff like lien stripping in BK and other less common tactics).

I will look at 10+ properties at once and figure out what each should CF at the appropriate tax, vacancy, maintenance, and utilities multiples.

Part of that rehab is that the units are currently two bedrooms but HUGE so we are turning them into 3 beds AND putting hvac that runs into each unit and sub metering water so that the tenants will pay all utilities.