Your percentages may be different, but this will keep my example simple.Apt 1 rental - 100% of expenses are a write offApt 2 owner occupied- 50% of these expenses are a write off, because half is a "rental/roommate"Whole House- 75% of these expenses are a write off because you are only owner occupying 25% (so things like repair to common area, landlord electric meter, etc.)At tax time I print a P&L by class and give that to my accountant.I'm not an accountant and not giving any professional tax advice, but this system while a little work upfront, keeps things really easy and is a system thats worked for me.

I've run analysis using Rent-o-meter, Zillow, and Trulia.

I would go with the 1st option, but it's going to be hard to press someone in court to pay the bill because they can say they did not use that much utilities, without sub-metering, you would not have any proof on who used more than the other tenants, but for the most part tenants will pay it.I guess if you wanted to stipulate in the contract that the lower unit would pay for the entire building you could, it's a contract after all..

Not to mention updating the meters to 200 amp, sub metering the water.

You will most likely be looking at separate utilities so there will be some cost increase in the dual furnce, A/C, water heaters, meters, etc.I'm curious to know what others' experiences have been as I agree with you that cost to build may be very close to existing so for similar prices you'd have new construction.Good luck!

Ask about utilities and meters...are they separate or all on one.

I was just curious if anyone has feed back on the 2 different paid versions of Rent-o-Meter (which one you selected and why).

If there is a shared meter for a utility, then you maintain responsibility and figure out how to recover the cost from the Tenants.HOW TO SHARE UTILITIES 101You have a property with two or more units and the utility meters are shared.

If you want to know what makes the "world go round" study psychology, you're constantly being "played", another reason to have a good BS Meter!

Our saving grace is that most of the utilities are metered out, and because the units are a big size (duplex 2BR/1.5BA) we can still rent them at a solid price.