Advice: Buying/ House Hacking First Rental Property in San Diego!

[Manuel Moreno Jr]

BiggerPockets Fam, 

Would love your advice and guidance. I am looking to buy and house hack a rental property here in San Diego. My father will be my partner and will help me with the down payment. Spoke to a lender and got the green light. We are looking for a fixer-upper, using a 3.5% FHA Loan.

My question is what would you do: 

Would you recommend we buy a single-family home with a detached, and convert the detached into a studio (where I would live) and rent out the front house?

Or 

Would you recommend I buy a Duplex - Quadplex and live in one unit and rent out the rest? 

Thank you in advance for sharing your insight and for your time.  

Blessings, 

Manny Moreno 

[Dan H.]

I would buy the duplex (I would try for a detached duplex) because the other unit's rent will help with you income requirements, it provides more flexibility going forward, the costs to convert (garage or other structure) to an ADU is more than you would think and more than they are valued by buyers and appraisers, the ADU addition cost typically has less than optimal financing.

Note a Duplex has potential to have ADU added, have square footage added to one or both units, maybe be subdivided. The ADU is more restricted on each of these options.

Good luck