Duplex House Hacking Help

[Dustin Powell]

Total Realestate noob here. I'm 27 and currently on deployment. Before leaving on deployment my wife and I sold our house and she moved in with my parents. We currently have no debt and are trying to figure out what to do when I get home. A couple days ago she found a duplex for sale in Russellville Arkansas. It's listed for 295k, it was just built last year and rents for 900. She wants to live in one unit and rent the other. I do believe we could raise the rent to 1000 or or 1100 but even so I just can't make the numbers make sense to me. I'm not totally against the idea of getting into Realestate investing, I would just like some guidance from someone with experience to help me understand if this is a terrible deal. I will be able to use a VA loan so we could put 0 down, we would also be able to put up to 65k down. Really just looking for general advice on the situation. I don't want to buy a SFH yet because with our careers I don't know if we will stay in the area for more than a couple years. I do want to live there long term though.

Edit: I forgot to mention the duplex is 3000 square feet so 1500 per side. Also has a garage for each unit. So it’s selling for less than 100 per square foot. 

[Steven Foster Wilson]

Quote from @Dustin Powell:

Total Realestate noob here. I'm 27 and currently on deployment. Before leaving on deployment my wife and I sold our house and she moved in with my parents. We currently have no debt and are trying to figure out what to do when I get home. A couple days ago she found a duplex for sale in Russellville Arkansas. It's listed for 295k, it was just built last year and rents for 900. She wants to live in one unit and rent the other. I do believe we could raise the rent to 1000 or or 1100 but even so I just can't make the numbers make sense to me. I'm not totally against the idea of getting into Realestate investing, I would just like some guidance from someone with experience to help me understand if this is a terrible deal. I will be able to use a VA loan so we could put 0 down, we would also be able to put up to 65k down. Really just looking for general advice on the situation. I don't want to buy a SFH yet because with our careers I don't know if we will stay in the area for more than a couple years. I do want to live there long term though.

Edit: I forgot to mention the duplex is 3000 square feet so 1500 per side. Also has a garage for each unit. So it’s selling for less than 100 per square foot. 

 Hi Dustin, 

I love how you and your wife are thinking outside the box. Also, thank you for your service! I would start to run numbers on a lot of different places. https://www.calculator.net/ren...I like to use this calculator. When I was starting everyone discouraged me and said why not just rent? I was determined though. I would keep looking and searching. I mean you already have one of the best loans out there and I am pretty sure you can use it every few years so I would start now so you can keep that ball rolling. 

Find a realtor in your area that works with investments and has off-market deals. Our brokerage here in Ohio makes sure all of our realtors are cold-calling daily. Keep analyzing and looking. The more you do the more you will know when a good deal comes.