First HouseHacking Questions

[Antoine Baisy]

Hello BP, I am currently in the process of buying my first residence in Houston, TX (and ever). In order to make the most out of this purchase, I would like for it to provide some sort of cash flow. You know what that means, House Hacking. I have a pretty narrow price range right now, <125k, so I'm thinking either a really small multi-family or just be a live-in landlord and go the roommate route. Also, I'm not very handy at the moment, so I've been trying to avoid any houses that need some sort of major rehab.

I'd like to get some opinions on the less obvious pros and cons of each method. For example, if I were to go the live-in landlord route, how does that affect things like Lease Agreements. Are there any legal gotchas I need to know about?

Thanks in advance for any help or advice!

[Patrick N.]

One way to ease into it is to rent out your extra room(s) for a few months at a time through AirBnB. I'm doing that now with my two rooms, and have not had any issues because I only rent to people that have stayed with other hosts and have been reviewed. AirBnB collects rent for you and insures your home. The whole process is pretty seamless.