All Forum Posts by: Christian Nossum

I agree with Craig. Rent by the room is where it’s at. I did that with my first house hack in Seattle when I was 21. Plus, the awesome thing about Seattle is that rents are high and with the new legislation you can add another 1-2 units to any single family house (basically you can have up to 3 total units in any single family home now).

I’d look at doing both here. Buy a home with the ability to add a second unit in the basement (either a split level home or an unfinished basement), and rent out the other rooms in the floor that you’re living in. While you’re living there work on remodeling/adding that other unit(s) yourself. Then once you finish adding the second unit rent that out (and see which one makes you the most sense/money for you to live in). I actually feel that Seattle has a better ability to house hack than outside the city because of this new rule change coupled with the high rents and the large number of people looking/willing to have roommates.

It sounds like the same answer i recently received. I have a duplex in Seattle that I'm looking at adding a DADU to, and in order to add that third unit I need to reclassify the home as a single family residence with an ADU first. Then I can get the permit for the DADU approved. Seems backward to change a home to a SFR in order to get 3 units, but that is the way it is. Good luck if you move forward with it!

I haven’t had the pleasure of using them myself yet, but I’ve heard really good thing about the Appliance Repair Outlet in Snohomish.

You had one item incorrect. They didn't actually add in the 1 year of owner occupancy requirement. It was proposed at the end, but that part of the bill failed to make it in (it was voted down 7-1). That makes this a lot better for us investors. 

Another item that I'd love to clarify is that the new max size of homes only deal with the "above ground" portion of the home, so anything that's below ground doesn't count toward that total.

I do think that this will provide some more affordable housing. I also think it will also be a big win for investors. I live in Seattle, own rentals, and I can now add an additional unit to two of my homes. 

Another item of note:

• Increases the maximum household size permitted on a single-family lot from 8 to 12 unrelated people only if the lot includes two ADUs

I own a duplex near the University of Washington that I could add a DADU (detached accessory dwelling unit). Had this household size limit not been increased, I couldn't have added a DADU to this rental. Now that they did I can.

I could see this opening up some nice studio and 1 bed DADU's in neighborhoods that don't have many rentals in them currently, which would help tenants. In terms of rentals for us landlords, I could see this opening up some opportunities for current landlords to add an additional unit or two to a rental property, and also to turn a property that wouldn't generate enough cashflow with the single unit currently on-site, to producing a positive cashflow with the addition of 1-2 more units.