House Hacking with a family

[Tim Clark]

As we consider to relocate to Lynchburg, VA I would love to experiment with house hacking with my family. My wife is a little on the fence with this idea (I don't blame her), but I was going to start with purchasing a duplex. That being said, the house that we own is a 1700 sqft house. It looks like most of the duplexes that I am seeing will mean down sizing my family's living arrangements. Has anyone ever downsized their family to a smaller house? What challenges were unexpected or really became a deal breaker? While I do want to accelerate how quickly we can grow our investment properties, I really do not want to make it really hard on my family.