Looking to make my first house hack upon graduating college in the spring. Looking for mortgage lenders and Real Estate Agents in the Chicagoland area to start the process. Any suggestions would really help! Thanks.

@Brayden Schiff - at the top of the screen is a "network" tab and under that is a list of agents and lenders

@Brayden Schiff

I started off with house hacking and multifamily before deciding to get my own brokers license. Let me know if you need somebody to bounce ideas off of. My cell is 8722407300

@Brayden Schiff Hi Brayden, Good luck. I am a commercial and hard money lender, but you want to connect with a conventional or FHA lender if you plan to live in the home. Now is a great time, both for you as a recent college grad looking to house hack and also rates are at an all time low and values may be down, depending on where you are looking to buy.

@Brayden Schiff I would talk to @chris puleo who is also our guest on next weeks Podcast.  On the show he actually talks  pretty much about house hack the entire time.  

@Brayden Schiff which areas are you looking in? There are quite a few of us on here who are agents. It is just about finding the person who covers your area so you can also take advantage of their network after you close. 

@John Warren mostly interested in Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, or Wrigleyville. Thanks!

@Brayden Schiff - I'd make sure you link up with @Brie Schmidt for an agent who posted above.  The area you mentioned is definitely where she covers.  She works with tons of investors and will find you a great house hack.

For lenders, I'd recommend connecting with @Zack Karp or @Michael Facchini .

Do you have a budget in mind?

@Jonathan Klemm thanks for the tag!

@Brayden Schiff house hacking in the affluent areas you mentioned can be challenging if you are looking at 2-4 unit properties and wanting to use FHA financing. 3 & 4 unit properties with FHA have a self-sufficiency test (SST) where 75% of the total rents must be higher than the PITI. Often in these areas, the price points are too high to pass the SST. 2-unit properties can work as long as you can stay under the FHA loan limit. If you have any questions about your financing options and strategy, feel free to reach out.

Best of luck!

@Brayden Schiff , kudos to you for getting on the real estate investing and house-hacking track fresh out of college! That's the way to do it my friend! First step is to figure out some of the finances and options, and then narrow down on areas where the opportunity exists. As much as I love Lincoln Park, Wicker, and Wrigley, those are tough spots to pull off a first house-hack, for the reasons mentioned above - namely the restrictive FHA loan limits. Prices in these neighborhoods are too expensive, and unless you have a healthy chunk to put down, it's hard to make something happen there. But there are plenty of surrounding neighborhoods where big things are happening. Happy to point you in the right direction there! I've got some stuff in Lakeview and LP, but I'm turning more towards the "developing areas" on the fringe of these expensive neighborhoods to find the real deals :-)

@Brayden Schiff reach out to @Brie Schmidt . She and @Charlie Shields cover those areas. You will be looking at deals that are more about lowering your expenses as opposed to cash flowing, but you can still make sense of house hacking there if you think long term. 

@Brayden Schiff - those areas will not qualify for low money down options.  You will need at least 20% down with prices of at least $800k but probably over $1 million and then it is still hard to find properties that will break even every month.  

I used @Sarita Scherpereel and she was quite good. She walked me through the house hacking process in its entirety and was a great agent. I used @Michael Facchini and he was able to close as quick as possible for an FHA. Both worked very well together.

@Aaron Zimmerman , appreciate the shout-out!  @Brayden Schiff , here to help in any way!  Any questions, fire away!  Hopefully the thoughts above are helpful and get you on a more fruitful track for this first house-hack.