Convincing friend to House-Hack and is it smart?

[Waylen Herdman]

I'm itching to get into real estate by house-hacking but I can't afford anything by myself here in Nashville. I can afford some surrounding areas but I don't want to live in these places. My plan is to get a good friend who is also wanting to buy a house (at least that's what he's saying) to join in on a MFH house-hack with me. We would both be on the mortgage to qualify for house in the 200k-250k range. I was pre approved for a 5% conventional primary home loan in the past and he has zero debt whatsoever so I think it wouldn't be terribly difficult to qualify for this, and even if we weren't, we could just use an FHA loan.

I briefly brought it up a few days but he didn't seem too interested. The only issue he posed was that he just entered his first real relationship with this girl, they've been dating for 3 months, lol. He said that may "mess" things up. I didn't have a chance to rebut before his GF came and the conversation just sizzled. I want to bring it back up and actually provide numbers on WHY it's smart for us to partner and how we can live for free or even make a few bucks per month. If he's really planning on buying a house he'll be spending far more each month than by partnering with me.

So here are my questions:

1) If we're both on the mortgage with, let's say, a 5% conventional primary home loan, do we both HAVE to live in the house full-time or can just one person (me) live there full-time? I know that if he has his mail sent to the house then there will be zero issue even if he does eventually move in with his GF but I want to give him peace of mind.

2) What's the best way to show the numbers to him? Just pull up a possible MFH on realtor.com and go through the process of analyzing a deal on paper? Any tips on this as I don't want it to look like I'm trying hard to sell him, y'know?

I want him to know that this is not only a viable option but a financially prudent one as well.