House Hack - Northern Virginia

[Samuel Choi]

Hello everyone! New to the BiggerPockets community and nervous/excited to get started! 

I am looking to buy a single family or townhouse in Northern Virginia to house hack and looking for recommendations/advice. What are the best "rent-by-room" markets in NoVa? I've listed some (that I can afford below) for thoughts/feedback:

1. Reston - Near Silver Line metro and Reston Town Center; Companies setting up shop in Reston
2. Herndon - Upcoming metro (Silver Line); potentially in the "path of progress" once the metro opens
3. Sterling - Nestled between Reston/Herndon areas and Ashburn; another "path of progress" market that's still affordable

In terms of budget, I've received pre-approval for conventional loan with 5% down payment and would be comfortable in the 400k-550k range. Right now, I think my best option would be to look at 3Bed-2.5Bath homes with a finished basement. That way I can rent out the basement as another unit.

If anyone has any advice for a new real estate investor or just want to connect since you're in the DC area, feel free to connect with me!

[Emily Howlett]

Welcome to the community, Samuel! The first area that comes to mind for rent-by-room is Arlington County. It may be a little tougher to find something in your budget, but it's close to DC, has a solid professional community of young professionals, and is considered way too expensive by most people to just buy their own house (although ironically they could likely afford a condo easy peasy...). Alexandria is another option with similar reasons behind it. 

A couple other random thoughts tied to your request: 

• Keep in mind the various limits each jurisdiction puts on how many unrelated persons can live in one house. For example, some areas are lower, some are higher - this will affect how much you can anticipate realistically making in terms of profit). 
• What are your goals? If you're looking for cash-flow, it may be tough. If you're looking to simply not pay anything out of pocket, you can probably pull it off. Appreciation is usually pretty solid for NoVA, so that's a win regardless.
• Are you completely tied to living in NoVA? There's no wrong answer here. NoVA just tends to have higher prices, when you could look in MD and find something a bit more in your range with similar benefits.
• Are you open to doing some manual labor to fix a place up? If so, that would open up the possibilities so much! 

I'm an agent and have been in the area for a decent amount of time, and would be happy to help with anything you need!