My advice when looking at a house hack is to not get too in the weeds on how the property or building performs compared to other properties in the area, but rather view it from the lens of what it will do your personal finances and the impact it will have on your personal cost of living.  

No there is still one person living there right now. 

Hoping to start flipping homes personally as well! 

Response to #1: Some lenders allow for layered entities while others want warm bodies/natural persons to be direct managers.

Typically that's the roll of a business broker vs real estate agent, although sometimes one person does both.   

However, the value of your labor generally cannot be included in the cost basis for depreciation purposes.Accelerated Depreciation: A cost segregation study would identify components of your property that can be depreciated over shorter periods, such as personal property and land improvements.

You may know this already, but out-of-state investors are also sometimes surprised by Texas’ “high” property tax rate (but no personal income tax).  

Now the debate of where rates "should be" would be based on the quality of product each person/owner offers. 

Hi Kathryn - I personally would have no problem sharing insights if another host or soon-to-be host reached out to me.

Personally I would do a water change after every guest.To decide if the hot tab is a value add, look at your competition.