{"id":93045,"date":"2017-10-14T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-14T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=93045"},"modified":"2024-02-24T12:42:55","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T19:42:55","slug":"suburban-house-hacker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/suburban-house-hacker","title":{"rendered":"A Suburban House Hacker\u2019s Story: How a Single Mom Paid Her Single-Family Mortgage"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a BiggerPockets reader, you\u2019ve probably heard of house hacking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You likely think of small multifamily properties<\/a> when you think of house hacking\u2014which is one tactic, and it\u2019s a powerful one. Remember our case study of Tim Puffer, and how he house hacked a duplex and now lives for free<\/a>?<\/p>\n

But multifamily house hacking isn\u2019t the only way to cut down your housing payment. What other options are available?<\/p>\n

I can think of at least seven ways to house hack, and I\u2019m sure there are others. Many of them are available for single-family homes, too.<\/p>\n

My friend and partner Denise Supplee has used no fewer than three distinct tactics herself over the years. And not one of them required a multifamily or hunting for a new home.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a glimpse into her story and how she\u2019s used house hacking long before that term was \u201ca thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meet Denise<\/h2>\n

By the time I met Denise, she was a successful landlord and manager of a fast-growing startup.<\/p>\n

Aside from being smart, funny, kind, and grounded by the kind of rock-solid faith most people never even dream of, Denise has had more diverse experiences in real estate than anyone I\u2019ve ever met.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s been the head property manager of a 200+ unit apartment complex. She knows more about landlord-tenant law than any non-attorney I\u2019ve ever met. At one point, she even owned and managed a bar, with a full building of apartments above it. She\u2019s managed vacation rentals, taught her children how to succeed in real estate<\/a>, managed a landlord services website for 10 years.
\n
\nRelated:<\/strong> 7 Steps I Took to Land My First House Hack (& Rent it Out) With Ease<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

And now, for full disclosure, I\u2019m lucky enough to have her as my business partner.<\/p>\n

But long before all that, Denise was a struggling single mom with four young children. After a painful divorce, Denise was working as a secretary, had very little work experience, and couldn\u2019t afford to pay all of her family\u2019s bills.<\/p>\n

So what did she do?<\/p>\n

\"financial-freedom-habits\"<\/p>\n

Denise\u2019s First Foray into House Hacking<\/h2>\n

It was both a terrible and an enlightening moment when Denise finally admitted to herself that she couldn\u2019t afford to pay all her bills. For anyone who\u2019s ever been in that position, you know how hard that is to admit to yourself. It feels like an admission of defeat.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

Instead, it\u2019s a pivot point because it forces you to ask yourself a follow-up: \u201cOK, what will it take for me to cover all my expenses?\u201d<\/p>\n

Denise was already renting an inexpensive home and had no room to downgrade further. She was already buying the most affordable groceries she could to feed her four children and never ate out at restaurants. She needed her car to get to and from her suburban job and to get the kids to and from everywhere they need to be. Her car was dirt cheap, so there was no room to downgrade there either.<\/p>\n

What she could do, however, was bring someone else into her home to help her pay the rent.<\/p>\n

Her kids were already doubling up in bedrooms, but there was a tiny room (think walk-in closet size) that she\u2019d been using for storage. She moved a bed in there, vacating the master bedroom so she could rent it out.<\/p>\n

Starting to sound a little Harry Potter-esque? Well, her new housemate, Missy, proved to be her magic ticket out of Dursley-ville.<\/p>\n

Missy\u2019s payment covered two-thirds of Denise\u2019s rent. And in a surprising twist, Missy loved kids and volunteered to watch Denise\u2019s children whenever she wanted.<\/p>\n

With one change, Denise\u2019s life turned around. Not only was she now cash flow positive in her personal budget, but she had a free babysitter. She began to slowly rebuild her life\u2014and her sense of control over her finances, family, and her career direction.<\/p>\n

House Hacking 2.0<\/h2>\n

Fast-forward a decade. Denise was now earning significantly more and had developed marketable skills as a property manager and burgeoning real estate expert.<\/p>\n

After remarrying and buying her own home, Denise found herself with a suburban house with a large detached garage. She had far more storage space than she needed.<\/p>\n

Can you guess where this is going?<\/p>\n

Yep\u2014she rented out her garage as storage space.<\/p>\n

At no sacrifice to herself, she covered a third of her mortgage payment. She never saw her renters. She just got a check every month, in exchange for not using something she didn\u2019t need to use anyway.<\/p>\n

And as a nice perk, the laws governing storage spaces are much, much easier on landlords than residential landlord-tenant laws. If someone doesn\u2019t pay, they don\u2019t get 3-9 months in free rent, while the landlord has to jump through legal hoops.<\/p>\n

It was the easiest money Denise ever made.
\n
\nRelated:<\/strong> Why I\u2019m Not House Hacking (& the Strategy That Will Cover More of My Rent)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Getting More Creative: Denise\u2019s Current House Hacking<\/h2>\n

Today, Denise\u2019s children have reached their 20s. They\u2019ve flown the nest.<\/p>\n

But the nest is still home. Denise and her husband Jerry love their sprawling suburban home and didn\u2019t want to move, but it felt too big, too empty, too lonely without their huge Brady Bunch-style mixed family living there anymore.<\/p>\n

Oh, and large suburban homes come with large suburban mortgages, which can be tough to justify for empty nesters.<\/p>\n

Denise knew she needed to do something<\/em> outside the box again. But what? In her 50s now, she didn\u2019t want to bring in a housemate.<\/p>\n

Then it hit her\u2014what if she and Jerry got to be parents again, and this time get paid for it?<\/p>\n

After wading through mounds of research, Denise found her perfect solution, a service that places exchange students for a year. Once again, Denise managed to solve her largest problems with one stroke: She brought laughter and life back into her empty house and got a stipend to cover over half her mortgage payment!<\/p>\n

Her new \u201cson\u201d Alex is a 15-year-old exchange student from China. He\u2019s quiet and studious, but warm and kind, and Denise and her husband Jerry have fallen in love with him.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

More House Hacking Options<\/h2>\n

I love house hacking. If there\u2019s one thing that the average person can do to boost their budgets and supercharge their savings, it\u2019s house hacking.<\/p>\n

In fact, it was one of the tips we talked about in “How to Live on Half Your Income<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

There are plenty of options out there for house hacking, even in the land of suburban detached single-family homes. And most of them don\u2019t require you to move, either.<\/p>\n

As a \u201chouse hacking evangelist,\u201d I can go on all day about it (just ask my wife Katie). Luckily for our spouses, Denise and I have an outlet for our love affair with house hacking: our website. If you want ideas, you know where to find us!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What outside-the-box house hacking situations have you dreamt up?<\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s talk below.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Think you know house hacking? Here’s the story of how a single mom used house hacking in 3 different ways, to help pay for her detached single-family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":158586,"featured_media":93089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7356],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-house-hacking"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/158586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}