I'm still working on a good way to provide value to a tenant for the rent they pay for a paid off property. Once it's paid off I only want to be charging what it takes to maintain plus a little more for unexpected problems. But again, keeping it is the less likely scenario. Down payments on their own place is the goal!

I have and officially on paper he is a normal renter. Since this kind of deal doesn't happen there's really no system so his payout is a handshake deal on sale, as of now only around 8%. As for if the property is kept, once fully paid off he would receive a yearly dividend of what was made off rent, which wouldn't be much as we won't charge much above operating and maintenance cost. Truthfully keeping it is the less likely option as we would like to sell so he can walk away with a decent down payment on his own place.

I hate this about our system. To combat this i am sharing equity with the guy that rents a room. I'm tracking how much his rent payments go to paying off the mortgage (which I can make myself, it's just a larger house with rooms to spare) he will get a check based off the percent he paid off on sale, or a percentage of revenue if we end up keeping and paying it off years later. Finance people think I'm crazy giving up that much equity. I just hated tossing rent money to the void, so I figured now that I'm in a position to change my little corner of the world, I will.

I usually see people who can comfortably save and invest as middle class. If you can only barely save or are paycheck to paycheck you would be working poor.

Yeah he and his wife both have a teachers pensions, so what? They earned it working as teachers their whole lives. We should bring real pensions back for every American anyway, not this 401k shlock.

Are you completely financially secure? If not work on that. If you are, find something to volunteer for and give back to society, help your local community prosper.