Updated 9 days ago on . Most recent reply
3 Family Analysis
3 family home in Exeter sold in 2025 for low $800’s
1 bedroom unit, 2 bedroom unit, and 3 bedroom unit
Approx. little over 3000sqft
Recently renovated and is in good condition
Price per unit is approx. $260k/unit and $250/sqft
Trades on par unit and sqft wise to other multifamily Exeter properties.
From the previous Exeter properties we’ve seen, house hacking has proven to be about the same as rent——-Let’s explore if it’s the case here.
Assume you use a 5% conventional loan at a 6.5% rate. Taxes, insurance, and general repairs/maintenance/vacancy you’re looking at a total monthly payment of roughly $7100/mo.
Now from here, it depends which unit you want to live in. Say you want to live in the 1 bedroom unit and rent out the larger units.
A reasonable 3 bedroom rent in the Exeter market is $3000 and a 2 bedroom is about $2100. Total monthly income is $5100.
So living in the 1 bedroom in Exeter would be about $2000 which is essentially the same amount you’d be paying if you were renting. But what if you had a roommate or a partner living with you? This can also lower the financial burden.
So from the conclusion that I’ve made with analyzing multifamily properties in Exeter is that the “house hacking” strategy works however well you define a successful house hack. Some may consider paying the same as rent while owning a win, while others want to spend no more than $1000/mo or $500/mo.
Stay tuned to see what markets we evaluate next on the Seacoast!
Most Popular Reply
Good breakdown on the numbers. One thing I would add to the house hack analysis is that the $2,000/mo you are paying to live in the 1-bedroom is not really comparable to $2,000/mo in rent because they are doing completely different things for your financial position.
When you pay $2,000 in rent that money is gone. When you pay $2,000 as the gap between rental income and your mortgage, a portion of that is going to principal paydown. On a $760K loan at 6.5% you are paying roughly $1,200/mo in principal in the early years. So your actual housing cost is closer to $800/mo when you account for equity buildup. That reframing changes whether someone considers the hack "successful" or not.
The other piece that rarely gets included in house hack analyses is the tax side. If you live in one unit and rent two, roughly two-thirds of the property's depreciation, mortgage interest, taxes, and operating expenses are deductible against the rental income. On an $800K property that depreciation alone is around $13-14K/year in deductions on the rental portion. Depending on your income level that could be worth another $3-4K in actual tax savings, which effectively lowers your monthly cost further.
Where I think house hacking gets undersold is people compare it to renting on a monthly cash flow basis and stop there. The real comparison is: in 5 years, the renter has paid $120K in rent and has nothing. The house hacker has paid a similar amount but owns a property with $70-80K in principal paydown plus whatever appreciation Exeter delivers. That is the actual math that makes house hacking work even when the monthly numbers look like a wash.
Curious what cap rates you are seeing on stabilized triplexes in Exeter when all three units are rented at market.