What’s your House Hack Story?
Jacorion WilliamsPro Member
GA · Member since 2024 · 18 posts · 9 votesWhat’s your House Hack Story?
Most Popular Reply
Andrew BoscoBusiness Member
Rental Property Investor · NH · Member since 2023 · 442 posts · 417 votesHey there! I am on my second house hack. Completely different stories.
Househack 1: Bought in 2022 (Jan). 430K for a 2 family. Complete POS and bad tenants. FHA buy. House was barely passable. 3.0% interest rate. Overpaid and put like 70K into it. Looking back - terrible investment. All this said, I GOT STARTED! That is all it took for me to propel my real estate career. Gutted the entire building and left the exterior as is. I rented the top floor for 2200 per month for a 2 bed/1bath and the going rate for 2 beds was around 1800. I made my units A quality.
My tenant was paying 2200 and my mortgage was 2700 per month. My wife (girlfriend at the time) paid me 1500 in rent every month to live there (with me). We used that money over time and saved up. Bought out second house hack. Completely different place 1 year later. Also, my first house hack was a bad buy imo, but now with both units rented - my cash flow is 400 bucks per door, which is sweet.
Househack #2: 5% down. 3 family. Completely turn key. FSBO. It was an illegal 3 family (legal single family with an in law) with a random other unit. Sat on the market. I made the owner a lower offer and asked for 25K back in credits. I am also an agent. I paid 600K (appraised at 700K) for this place and only brought 8k to closing with me personally since I also got a commission. The entire building was vacant and turn key. We are in a beautiful rural area. 5+ year plan to stay here. Everything is up to code now.
Motive: build financial independence. I looked at each house hack as a future payment to myself.
Crazy stories; househack 1: peeling layers back and ended up gutting place. Tenants were respectful, but left in a angry way. Nothing to absurd.
advice: just get involved, but make the deal work. On your first house hack - just make sure you pay less on a mortgage than you would rent.
Andrew Bosco - Candor Investment Group529 Reviews
31 Replies
- GA · Member since 2024 · 18 posts · 9 votes2yWell good luck on that and hope it comes out great!
Quote from @Patrick McCann:
Quote from @Jacorion Williams:
Quote from @Patrick McCann:
Currently in my first house hack, a duplex I purchased in December 2022 for 444k with an 3.5% FHA, the property was in just good enough condition to qualify. When we moved in we were using the down stairs units kitchen and bathroom and living upstairs because the appliances upstairs weren't really usable and the shower had cracks. I've been rehabbing it myself since day 1. Focused on getting the rental unit finished first and did that in 2 months, have had it leased for $2300 since. Slowly finishing our unit, I gutted our kitchen and totally re did it, house is 150+ years old so I've have to do many repairs to the plaster walls, still a bathroom to gut and exterior work to do. Biggest problem I've faced is running out of money and having to save again to continue rehabbing, but duplex's in my area are now trading between 575-675k so once work is completed I expect to have 200k+ in equity. Biggest regret, not starting sooner! I waited till 29 when I knew my whole adult life it was something I wanted to do but always thought I needed more money saved or that I couldn't afford it when realistically I could've done it several years prior at a much lower price and interest rate as well. I didn't actually start researching about real estate investing till after I already started looking at properties.
Well better late than never! On the bright side you were able to add in equity!
How long did it take since purchasing the property with having to continuously rehab at the same time?Still going haha. Still have a bathroom to gut, walls and stairway to be sanded/painted, exterior trim to be replaced and the whole exterior painted.
- GA · Member since 2024 · 18 posts · 9 votes2yThat’s a really good idea. I thought of taking up a trade too like maybe in plumbing to fix any leaky pipes myself.
Quote from @Michael Orlando:
I just turned 28 I bought my duplex 4 years ago. I was able to save up a lot of money to buy it. I didn’t have a great income. I thought it would be easy. I thought just hiring a property manager would make it really easy. A tenant and the property management company walked all over me and costed me thousands and thousands of dollars. Since then I got into the trades actually learned how to manage a property/tenants. I found out if you need to pay someone every time something breaks you’re not going to make money. I now am earning pretty good money and know how to do a lot of repairs myself. I have a lot more confidence when I screen for tenants.
Things I wish I knew Are take your time getting the right tenant. It’s a lot better to have it vacant a little longer than get a bad tenant that causes headaches. I would also look into the trades if you’re not already in them. If you learn to fix houses you will never run out of work or money. I would also say if you don’t make a great income work on that before making any moves on real estate. Information online makes it seem like it’s no big deal if something breaks because you have paying tenants. It’s not always that simple.
Also, it sucks that you had to deal with a bad property manager and bad tenants but good to see that you were able to learn from those experiences! - GA · Member since 2024 · 18 posts · 9 votes2y
Quote from @Michael Smythe:
Did a duplex, bought with FHA 203(k) - which allows repair costs to be included in purchase mortgage.
Wasn't easy, as had to get bids from licensed contractors, even though I planned to do most everything myself.
Worked out well, refinanced out of the FHA into NOO loan and then bought another duplex with FHA and hacked that one.
Nice!
Ideally what I want to do with multi-family units.
Also, was there anything that made it difficult to get bids or was it more of a tedious process?
- Mechanicsburg, PA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes2y
@Jacorion Williams Long story short, bought first real estate SFH, rented rooms, lived there mostly for free,Then long term rental, bought new place, rinse and repeat 1,000 times(no joke). Longer version told in Bigger Pockets Podcast #82
David Krulac
Bigger Pockets Podcast #82
- Contractor · Chicago, IL · Member since 2016 · 4k+ posts · 2k+ votes2y
Appreciate the questions @Jacorion Williams. I've found almost all skills and life in general can be a snowball with a growth mindset!!
The equity and small amount of profit (new builds have a very slim profit margin) in the Chicago ground-up new construction was really from getting the land at a good price. We actually started our business Quality Builders at the same time and used that as a first project launch pad!
I'd don't live in the 19 unit but it is still in our portfolio...It's in Cicero which is a western suburb of Chicago.
What is your next step in your real estate journey?
Quality Builders4.966 Reviews - GA · Member since 2024 · 18 posts · 9 votes2yI’ll make sure to check it out
Quote from @David Krulac:
@Jacorion Williams Long story short, bought first real estate SFH, rented rooms, lived there mostly for free,Then long term rental, bought new place, rinse and repeat 1,000 times(no joke). Longer version told in Bigger Pockets Podcast #82
David Krulac
Bigger Pockets Podcast #82
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