New to Real Estate · Member since 2025 · 4 posts · 0 votes
I’m 20 years old looking into buying a property in the Fresno market for a live-in-flip house hack where I can force appreciation and build equity through doing renovations on my own.
Properties I’m looking at take up about 56% of monthly wages without roommates and about 25% when I calculate the costs with roommates.
How should I be underwriting this deal? What should I look for? Any investors have some advice for a young investor trying to get their foot in the door? Thank you all for taking the time to read!
Nice that you're running the numbers before buying. A few things that help when you underwrite a house hack or live-in flip:
1. Use the full monthly cost, not just the mortgage: principal + interest + property tax + insurance (PITI), plus utilities and HOA if any.
2. Add reserves for the things that always show up: maintenance (a common rule of thumb is ~1% of the home's value per year), vacancy on any rented rooms or units (5-10%), and capital expenses (roof, HVAC, water heater).
3. Be conservative with rent. Use what similar units actually rent for, not the best case.
4. Check your debt-to-income ratio with a lender early, because that is what decides how much you can borrow, not your own budget.
5. Keep several months of expenses in cash after closing.
If the property takes more than half of your income before any rent offset, I'd test the numbers with the rent at a lower amount, so one empty month doesn't put you in trouble. Putting it all in a simple spreadsheet (income, fixed costs, reserves, worst case) makes it much easier to compare properties side by side.