House Hacking in Bay Area @>$1M!!!!

[Keong Kam]

Hello BP!

I live in bay area and I am looking to see if I can house hack on a quad-plex. 

I am mainly looking in San Jose, Santa Clara area, and I know I know... super expensive, but worth looking right?

I don't think at our price range, house hacking in duplex does not buy me much in terms of reducing housing cost. e.g. ~1.2M purchase, maybe $2500 rent on one side. However, I see that if played right 4-plex might work e.g. ~1.8M purchase, $6-7000 from 3 units and live in one.

I am trying to see what kind of creative financing option I have to make this work. I called a couple of banks and they all say for 4-unit you have to put 25-30% down even for owner occupied case at this price range (>1.5M). I looked up FHA loan and it looks like the limit is ~620K so definitely not going to work. Does anyone have experience doing multi-unit property house hacking with financing strategy to minimize down payment and something like 5/1ARM with IO?

Thanks!!!!!