Housing hack advice for a newbie

[Giulia Mylla]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for taking the time to read this, any response will be greatly appreciated!

I'm an ultra newbie to real estate investing, or any kind of investing for that matter. I'm at the point in my life where purchasing a home is the next step I want to take but I really want to look at this as an investment opportunity over anything else.

I recently came across the term "housing hack" and am super interested in learning more. When I decided a home purchase was my next goal, I always envisioned a single family home where I could settle down for the time being but I've had a bit of a shift in mindset. I really would love to be able to find a duplex or some other type of set up where I could live in part of the home and rent out the other portion. My hope would be to highly offset my cost of living so I could put more money aside for a future investment.

I'm located in florida, I was saving/planning for the lowest possible down payment and getting first time homebuyer assistance for closing costs. My broker mentioned to me I would need 15% down for a duplex, this is not realistic for me at this point. Does anyone have any tips, tricks or hacks for making this work? Or would you suggest I continue to rent and save and wait it out?

Thank you so much again!