First time house hacking

[Dario Alburquerque]

Hi Everyone,

I am looking into house hacking and I am hoping to get some advice. I want to give you guys all the facts first in order to get the best possible advice. My girlfriend and I are currently hoping to save $40-$50k in the next 12-15 months in order to start our real estate investing journeys. I am an accounting manager and she is a internal auditor, together we make ~$145k/year. We currently own a single-wide mobile home on an acre and a quarter of land and pay $850/mo in mortgage. We are looking to do an FHA or conventional 5% down loan in order to start our first house hack with a triplex or a quadplex, while hopefully renovating the property to add some value. The goal is to do this once a year, while continuously saving $40-$50k each year to have 1-2 deals done each year moving forward. Do you guys think I need to save that much each year? What advice would you give someone in our situation?

Additional info, I currently have $6k in consumer debt that I am thinking will be cleaned up in the next month. 

I am very excited to get some advice from this community and I hope to start our real estate investing journey very soon! 

[Alan Asriants]

Hey Dario! Welcome to the BP community! Its great that you want to start, and house hacking is certainly a great way to do it. The amount of money you need to save up really depends on 3 things:

1. the purchase price

2. Mortgage type/down payment

3. Improvements needed

If youre aiming for 45-50k, going for a well maintained multi family is a good option (recently redone roof, newer HVAC, updated windows (expensive cap ex improvements that are hard to DIY). Other things like painting, replacing cabinets, tiling, can be a DIY and you can save some money that way.

If you plan on buying a Mulit family, your only real low money down option is FHA 3.5%. Conventional down payments for multi fam are at 15% min.

There are some bank statement programs that let you do 10% down on multis but the rates tend to be higher. hope this helps.