So we're doing that "Luxury House Hack" thingy!

[Christopher Davis]

This is part ‘success story,’ part shout-out.

My wife and I read the book by @Ben Leybovich on house hacking, and we were really part of the target audience of the book. We got bounced around pretty hard in the crash (though that was mostly due to our foolish approach to investing.) We liquidated over the next couple of years and had been renting ever since.  We pretty much followed the approach laid out in the book and we ended up finding a great house with a casita.  

Ben had recently moved to the Phoenix area which is where we live. Traditional house hacking here can be tough if you have small kids because of the areas in which non-commercial multifamily homes tend to be located. Every time we renewed our lease it really burned my posterior so I read the book straight through and got in touch with Ben via email. He called me and was incredibly gracious and generous with his time and advice on what he thought was best for our situation.

Having the expertise of a BP notable like Ben at one’s disposal was certainly a plus but we also were able to hire his wife, @patrisha Leybovich as our agent. This was great because she understands the parameters of the approach so well and she’s just so good at her job (seriously, the best realtor we ever dealt with).

We found a great house for a vacation rental house hack. It is situated close to the intersection of Interstate 10 and the 303 loop in the west Phoenix valley and has an attached apartment, or “mother-in-law” suite that is just perfect for a vacation rental on AirBnB/VRBO. We end up with almost the same square footage in a much nicer house and are paying a $1550 mortgage (265K PP with 5% down) instead of $1200 on rent. The suite is just this week being listed on AirBnB and VRBO so there is no revenue yet but even a very modest income from the rental unit will have us paying less for our mortgage than we did on rent.

This is a tiny thing for many folks here but huge for us. We are very happy and excited with our ‘hack’ and I’m glad to have taken at least a small step back into investing and building equity. My wife and I are both grateful to the BP community and the people who share their ideas in order to help others improve their lives. We’re also thankful to the Leyboviches in particular. They are both great, caring people who are sincere about what they do and practice what they preach.

The one caveat I give is you should wear your big boy/girl pants if you reach out to Ben, he gives it to you straight; do something dumb and you will be called a dummy!

Updates to follow…

PS if anyone wants any more specifics on anything regarding our house or experience with the house hack project, I’m happy to share or help in any way I can.