How would I help a hacker ( in Austin)?

[Matt Stricklen]

My wife and I were fortunate enough to get a good deal on a duplex before "hacking" became the term. Here in Austin, that has become a harder target for people just getting started. The mortgage payment for a newbie on an FHA loan would be too high to expect the tenant side to cover, and it's probably going to be a while before any cash flow is realized.

Trying to pick some experienced investor brains here: What would a good deal look like for an investor who wanted to provide some passive help to the hacker/ landlord in training? And what would that deal look like for the hacker?

[Michael Tyler]

A lot of the duplexes I see in Texas (including ours in Austin) are 3br/2ba each side. If I were young, single, and hungry to get into the market, what I would do is somehow get into a 6br/4ba duplex and rent out rooms. 

Keep one bedroom in each unit mine. Sleep in one, an office in the other. That way I can walk in and out of both units at will as if the whole place is mine. Be a part of both households and wrangle the inevitable tempest of young renters.

Leaves four bedrooms to rent out. Five if I'm too hungry/broke to afford two beds myself. 

If I were really smart and had family close by, I would make my mom or uncle "the landlord" so no one knows I'm the boss. They think I'm just the landlord's kid getting a sweet deal on rent, and no one's dramas dare cross my bedroom doorstep. 

That's how people did it in San Diego during the bubble/bust. I saw it firsthand. Assuming rents rise over the years and I make continual improvements to the place, I would be set up to transition into the traditional hacking model of renting one unit in whole and occupying the other side myself.