House Hacking - Financing Question

[Mary Wells]

Hi BP community! I’m an aspiring first-time homebuyer in a VHCOL area, and am looking to purchase a 2B/1Bath condo somewhere in the region. My goal is to live in this first property for at least 12 months (but realistically a few years) and have a roommate in the second bedroom to help offset the net costs. Once I’m in a financial position to purchase a new primary residence, I would then use owner-occupant financing to purchase this second property, move into it and rent out the first condo at market price.

I’m having a hard time finding information on the financing piece of how house hackers build their real estate portfolio – is this plan generally sound? Am I missing anything? If anybody has any personal experience or any good books/blogs, I’d love to hear about them – thanks!!

[Matthew Kwan]

HI Mary,

There are several ways to run and make sure you are maximizing your rental income while keeping your living expense as low as possible. Try looking into zillow/Redfin and see what your potential rents you can get near the neighborhood by filtering the bedrooms/bathrooms of the intentional property that you are planning to buy. This will allow you give a reference point on how much potential rent you can receive. (Max vacated rents - your monthly mortgage payment) = +/- net cashflow. 

On the other hand, you could also look into multifamily units where you can live one of the unit and rent out the other vacant units with as little as 5% down payment. The main hurdle that many of our borrowers face are the income aspect of it, especially expensive markets like the West coast. However, it allows you to use the vacant rents of 75% market rent as an alternative income to help the borrower to qualify.

Happy to connect and assist you in your real estate investing journey. @Albert Bui @Carlos Valencia