Occupancy rates are over 95% in the grid.

For another, my occupancy of the MIL is so unpredictable and sporadic that it is hard to develop any rationale for the portion I should pay even if I wanted to do so (but it would definitely be less than the sq ft proportion).So, I was thinking of just laying it on the line for prospective tenants, "yes, you will pay all electric/gas/water/cable/trash, and yes that includes for the MIL suite, but I will pay landscaping ($200/mth) and pest control spraying ($30-$50/mth)".It probably wouldn't deter the discovery of a decent tenant, but I'm fearful I'd be planting the seed for some amount of resentment, whereas if I were to communicate (or treat) the situation differently, maybe I could avoid and have a nice Kumbaya relationship.Any ideas on how I could best handle this situation?  

I assume by income from occupancy but it reads like the business was suffering.

@Michael Oldani , the best thing you can do is buy a 3-4 unit building with an FHA owner-occupant loan with 3.5% down payment.

I'm just starting too and I don't know much, but I do know you need to know a lot about a property, and you can't rely on Zillow and the current occupant to give you the information.I didn't try this, but supposedly the trial is free for, I suspect, one report--who knows:http://www.datatree.com/try-totalviewAt the very least, there is a sample report that you can view that shows the sort of data you need.Kudos on jumping in, but be careful!

I think this is great, however, my INITIAL PLAN was to house hack it for ONE year (which is what my FHA loan requires a minimum occupancy length of) and after that year is up, I was going to try to start looking for the next investment. 

Caveat of course is I'd need 25% equity whether I'm still an owner occupant or not.Might be worth calling around different lenders and learning their guidelines. 

add an owner occupant list.

Consequently you might end up with 50% occupancy throughout the year.

The 203k is only able to be used by primary residence owner-occupants or qualified non-profit groups.