{"id":101409,"date":"2018-08-17T15:04:49","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T21:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=101409"},"modified":"2023-04-14T07:09:58","modified_gmt":"2023-04-14T13:09:58","slug":"house-hacking-la-full-time-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/house-hacking-la-full-time-student","title":{"rendered":"How I Hacked a Half-Million Dollar House in LA as a Full-time Student & Violinist"},"content":{"rendered":"

My name is Wynton Grant. I\u2019ve been a fan of BiggerPockets for years now, and after all this time listening and reading, last year I finally took the plunge into real estate investing by diving headfirst into the Los Angeles real estate market and buying my first property, a 4-bed\/3-bath house hack<\/a>. I\u2019ve been out here for the past 12 months doing a variety of long-term renting and Airbnb in this property, and in short, it has changed my life! So, I\u2019m writing this post to give back to the community a little bit, tell my story, and share what information I\u2019ve learned about real estate and how to house hack. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, \u201chouse hacking\u201d is when yo<\/span>u buy a piece of investment real estate, live in one of the units (or, in my case, bedrooms), and rent out the others.<\/span><\/p>\n

To give some background: I’m 25 now and am a professional violinist AND full-time graduate student (at USC) living in Los Angeles (more on that\u00a0here<\/a>). The main reason I mention these things is just to say: You can get into real estate at any time in life! In between my professional music career and being a full-time student for the past 7+ years, I found time to earn money and study up to make this happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Backstory<\/h2>\n

After graduating from the Yale School of Music last year, I needed to move out to Los Angeles for professional and academic reasons. And when I started looking at the rent prices in LA and how much money I had saved up, I figured that rather than burn through every dollar I had made by trying to rent in LA for a year or two, it made the most financial sense to try to turn whatever savings I had into something that would continue to pay me.<\/span><\/p>\n

As soon as I decided LA was where I needed to be, I immediately drew up a list of qualities that I wanted in a house, started looking at Zillow\/Redfin\/etc., and reached out to some real estate agents. However, nobody would speak to me until I got prequalified for a loan. So…<\/span><\/p>\n

\"short-sale\"<\/p>\n

Step #1: Get Financing<\/h2>\n

As with any real estate undertaking, one of the first\u2014and biggest\u2014steps is getting financing. And don’t be afraid to get creative and think outside the box with it. In my case, I\u2019ve been a student and musician for most of my life, so truthfully I don\u2019t make that much money in a year, and certainly not enough to qualify to buy a house in LA all on my own (average property value in this city is $608k!). But I had great credit (score of 795 at time of purchase), no debt (earned full scholarships to every institution I\u2019ve ever attended, bought my car used for cash, etc.), down payment money saved up from working a variety of jobs (gigs, waiting tables, stage managing, teaching, etc.), gifts, and savings from <\/span>good financial habits over\u00a08+ years. I also knew my parents\u2019 house was paid off. So I talked to my parents, showed them the numbers on the deal (my dad is an accountant), explained that I had multiple classmates graduating and moving out to LA with me who were interested in renting with\/from me. After assuring them I would pay the down payment (they helped with some closing costs), I was able to get them to co-sign on the loan.<\/span><\/p>\n

After getting prequalified (an arduous process; most major banks didn’t even want to talk to me because of my student\/musician income, and we wound up going with the lender my agent suggested), I was finally able to start talking to agents, and they began to send me potential properties.<\/span><\/p>\n

I should mention: I was still in Connecticut while doing all of this. I had never lived in LA nor spent more than three days there prior to moving out; I was a complete foreigner diving into the market. A large part of that process for me was constantly studying maps of LA, reading current and old newspaper\/web articles about the real estate market, and actively calling anyone I knew who had ever lived in LA, just trying to get as much information as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step #2: Find an Agent and Start Viewing Properties<\/h2>\n

Once prequalified (I got pre-approved for up to a $500k 30-year FHA loan at 3.5% fixed-interest rate with 3.5% down!), I started reaching out to agents via Zillow. I chose my agent (shoutout to Brian Castillo!) because he was the most responsive, had the best reviews, and had lots of properties to show me. <\/span><\/p>\n

When I first got in touch with him, I had a list of requirements that was pretty simple:<\/span><\/p>\n

My Requirements<\/h3>\n