Updated about 2 months ago on . Most recent reply
House Hacking Strategy as a New Investor
I'm considering house hacking as the strategy to pursue for my first home purchase. I've read other posts on house hacking but figured I'd better get some advice on my particular situation.
I'm located in a part of Utah where the market has a very low supply of multi-family units. There are some SFHs with casitas/granny flats, but they're priced at $600k plus. My local market sees a lot of STRs, so if I were to get a property like that I'd likely plan on using the smaller unit as an STR.
Rather than buying, we're considering buying a lot and building on it instead. With my self employment my time is flexible enough to put in some sweat equity. My wife and I have been able to save up about $30k in the last two years. There's a 1/3 acre lot in town we could get for $72k (closer to $90k with impact fees) or a 2 acre lot we could get 10 minutes out of town for $130k (already has water and power stubbed out to property). We're thinking of buying the 2 acre property, building a main home on it, refinancing or using a HELOC to build a casita, and renting the casita out as an STR.
We could either buy the 2 acres now and qualify to build in a year (income is $75-100k for 2025 depending on how we file but income was only $28k in 2024 before we graduated college, so next year our 2 year average will be much better) or wait a year and buy and build together. Or, we could buy the smaller lot, build, sell in a year (after FHA requirement is satisfied), and use the equity from doing some work myself to buy the bigger lot and build our other idea.
Or should we consider investing out of state in a better market, despite the challenges that brings?
We appreciate any advice!
P.S.
Does anyone have experience with metal kit barndominiums? Looks like they have a lower construction cost and are more efficient in the long run assuming quality materials are used.