House Hacking near Camp Lejeune

[Solomon D Thomas]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Jacksonville.

Purchase price: $155,000

Currently house hacking near Camp Lejeune.

[Solomon D Thomas]

@Sean McDonnell Good afternoon! I apologize for the late response, I'm not as active as I should be on the forums.

It's going well! I definitely would recommend house hacking for any new investor, if it makes sense to their specific situation. Here are 2 of the biggest lessons I've learned so far:

1. Always have a lease in place and ensure it covers majority items that may come up (rent amount, due date, when it's considered late, pet addendum, state specifics, etc). I initially rented a room to a good friend of mine. However, because I did not have him sign a lease and set certain expectations, this led to a little bit of drama.

2. You can't be afraid to take action. As is stated on the RE podcast pretty much every episode, you can "what-if" yourself out of ever taking action. I'm a firm advocate of house hacking being comparable to RE investing on training wheels. Because I'm "boots on the ground" every day, it's allowed my fears to settle down. Many of my non-investing peers ask me "Well, what if one of the tenants try to rob you? What if the roof blows off in a hurricane? What is the toilet floods and ruins the carpet?" Although these are possible outcomes, the financial reward is increasing monthly for me and the risk is diminishing as I wake up each day with a roof still over my head.