How Much to Save for a Single Family House Hack?

[Christian Wilson]

Hey guys! I am 20 years old and I want to purchase a single family home to house hack with. I'm in Omaha, Ne and I currently live in an apartment. I want to buy a three bedroom house and have two roommates cover the majority of the rent. I would pay maybe $100 per month. Using the BP Mortgage Calculator I figured a house in the $145,000 price range is what would be ideal. I calculated a payment of roughly $1,000 per month after mortgage, taxes, and insurance. My question is besides the $5,000 for a down payment on an FHA loan, how much is a good amount to have saved up before purchasing the house, and how much should I save per month for cap ex? Would love to hear everyone's feedback so I can better plan for this!

[Josh Miller]

A thousand ways to skin this cat so take everything I'm about to say, take with a grain of salt.  
1.  Although unsolicited,  I would not even consider purchasing a house until I've paid off all my bad debt.  i.e debt that isn't making you money.  Credit card, student loans, etc.  The reason I say this is if a bad day comes along, you don't want to worry about paying off your bad debt and a house payment.  Moving on...

2. Have at least 3 months of savings in the bank, hopefully, more outside of any housing expenses to cover. 

3. Now finally to your question.  Well, a lot depends on the house you end up buying.  Is the roof 15 years old, is the HVAC on its last leg, does the electrical panel need updating, has the plumbing been touched in the last 50 years?  How old is the house?  As a rule of thumb on my rentals, I consider 45% of the rent as "gone" before my mortgage.  So using your $140,000 house I'll take a stab and say that would rent around $1,400 a month.  That means you should expect to pay AT LEAST $630 a month in insurance, taxes, maintenance, and repairs.  Well actually maybe a bit less since you don't have a property manager, so make that an even $500 per month.  TImes that by 6 months and your talking about needing ~$3,000 if nothing goes wrong.  As I write this, I'm not loving my answer but it should give you something to think about.