All Forum Posts by: Jacorion Williams

We've been very happy in our 'luxury' househack for 17 years so far.  'Luxury' because it's in an area of SFRs and the MIL apt in the lower quarter of the house isn't noticed that much. 

We would not have been able to relax (retire sounds so final) early without our housing and utility costs being completely covered as they are.  We also wouldn't have been able to relax early if we were in the hospitality business bnb-ing or midterm renting it out. Those are a lot of work. 

A regret I and many other Gen Z parents I know have is that we didn't think of buying land to build a compound for our young adult kids and their friends.  I will probably still do it.  The boys anyway just need a few tiny or mobile homes with a couple shops they can work on their cars, trucks and motorbikes.  Try to assist them with some independence in this world of insanely high rents.   

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.

Thanks for the response @ChatGPT, I mean @Matthew Kwan

We were a live in flip family. The first one was ROUGH. We lived in a job site, full of dust, walking around in flip flops as we slowly renovated our house room by room over the course of 2-3 years. The neighborhood was great...that's probably why my wife came along for the ride. It was likely the only way we got into that neighborhood. She's got some grit too and saw the big picture. That construction also coincided with the birth of our first child. By the time we finished and had an amazing house, we sold it and bought another one. 

We then stayed in that one (though it wasn't bad - just needed some cosmetic updates) for 7 years, just moved out, kept it as a long term rental, and moved into another major fixer in our STR market across the country near Acadia National Park in Maine. We're going to slowly fix this one up again. The house hack portion of this story will be leaving our house for 6-8 weeks in peak season to rent it on airbnb/vrbo. This property is also on 5 acres and can be parceled off into 3 total lots...we're still working through what we are going to do there but the first and best idea would be to build an A frame or two to use as a STR.

Whew! Thanks if you made it this far and sorry for the length. Getting creative about using your primary as a chess piece for your investment journey is just fun and probably the best way to hit the fast forward button on your investment journey (so long as your reserves and marriage are strong enough to handle it).

@Jacorion Williams

Started by purchasing a duplex, lived in one side and did Airbnb on the other side. Now we're up to 12 units.

@Jacorion Williams me and my wife tried to house hack back in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. We couldn't make any deals work (we were so ignorant), and it set us back many years because we didn't buy anything. If I could do it all over again, I would have bought a three flat almost right out of the gate. We were looking at buildings in Berwyn here in the Chicago suburbs for 220k that are now worth 450k easily. 

Hey 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.