Beginner to House Hacking - DC / Richmond Area

[William Segal]

Hi All, 

My name is Will and I'm going to be graduating from Northeastern University in Boston this coming May. I have recently accepted my full time job that I will be starting in July 2021, and will be relocating to the DC area to start work. I have been fascinated with real estate throughout most of my college years, was the president of the Northeastern Real Estate Club, worked as a rental agent in Boston, and have a year of work experience with two different real estate private equity firms, and am currently working part time with a small operation of people that I know in my network trying to source off market opportunities in various markets, and transition the operation to self-management. House hacking has been on my radar for quite some time now, and I am eager to start buying my first properties once I have my salary and can thus qualify for most types of debt. 

I am planning for my strategy to revolve around the idea of super-commuting, as I am very interested in buying a 2-4 unit in the Richmond, VA area as my first house hack. I have considered many different options for how this could work - maybe I could make the sacrifice and drive the 2 hours (or more) each way to get to and from work each day since I have a car? Or maybe I could take the Amtrak and use a similar strategy (like Joe Biden did for many years between Wilmington and DC)? Or possibly even network with people in DC in the real estate community or other sources to try and rent a couch / living room for a few nights a week so I can reduce my commuting time while also keeping personal expenses low? (I am very open to / ok with improvising in this way - I spent 2 months during this pandemic living on various friends couches and working my internship remotely every day). All still up in the air as I do not know if this company will be transitioning to a permanent flex-WFH strategy in which employees will only need to be present in the office 2-3 days per week, etc. As of now they plan to begin their return to the physical office in April 2021, 3 months before my start date, but no official guidance as to how reopening will work or what the company will transition to (or back to) in the long term.

My questions to everyone here are as follows. How feasible do you all think this will be, given that I am a beginner to the DC/Richmond areas? If you do believe this would be possible, what areas in Richmond should I target / avoid, and what price points should I look for? Should I maybe try the cold calling approach to see if I can find an off market deal? (I have been using this strategy for my part time work for 4+ months now so I am very familiar with it, and have access to technology that simplifies the process). Finally, if the general consensus is that I am way in over my head and this won't work, what other markets should I target to do this? Obviously I do not have nearly the amount of capital needed to invest in DC as a recent college grad, so should I maybe look to Baltimore since it's a bit easier of a commute? Does Baltimore have decent appreciation potential, and quite frankly how safe would house hacking there be given that the city is known for very high crime rates?

Please let me know thoughts here, and would also be very open to chatting further via Zoom etc to learn more. Thanks so much. 

- Will Segal