Pay off Student Loan or Buy Primary Residence to House Hack
Hello,
Been reading a lot of RE books, listening to more BP podcasts (on show 101 currently) and looking at what my next steps should be. I wanted to pay down my student loan, and that was my primary goal. When I graduated, I had 180k in student loan. Luckily, it was for a degree in which I make about 150k currently and have my balance down to about 65k. I had not been financially driven until recently, just being happy with making decent money and living with the Jones's (living in luxury apartment, buying a nice car, eating out a lot, partying every weekend). I recently read "Set For Life" and started to make my budget and with moving into a friends apartment, downgrading my car, making my own food for the week and taking steps to cut down on my "party" bills, I will be able to save an additional $1500 per month. I'm curious as to what others think is the better play: Pay down my loans with the additional cash or forgo that to start saving for a down payment on purchasing a primary residence (which I plan to house hack with either roommates in a SFR or similar with a duplex). I refinanced my student loan down to a fixed 4.3% and my cheaper rent with roommates will be $600 + split utilities (down from $1200!). Before researching in Bigger Pockets and reading my sole goal was to pay down my student loans, but now I'm starting to think that it would make much better sense to just use the money I would have paid down on my loan (20-30k/year) and use that to get into the house hack. My logic now is that if I can get the house hack going with a property in which I would pay less than my current rent, then that makes the most sense. But on the other hand, getting equity in the property I purchase makes more sense either way. Is there anything I'm not thinking about or how should I go about analyzing properties?