House Hacking in Washington State

[Pete Perez]

Hello Fellow BPers!

I am a newbie investor from Southern California and have been spending a lot of time reading forums, books, and consuming as many podcasts as I can over the past several months. That preparation has led my fiance and I to want to house hack to get started. 

Here in Southern California I have been able to find plenty of potential properties (3 and 4 plex) that would pencil to zero or very close to zero (not including CapEx, vacancies, etc). But it would definitely be a better scenario than having a single family mortgage for the next several years and trying to save that way.

However, life has thrown us a curve ball recently. My fiance was accepted to University of Washington in Seattle and her program is fully funded. So we will be moving there in early September. Our goals remain the same, but we are not familiar with that market as we didn't grow up there. I have started looking in areas for multi family homes. I am trying to learn as much about the area as possible. 

Are there any investors in that area that can make any recommendations on which areas to look into? Also, is it difficult in that area to find renters? Here in SoCal it is pretty easy to find renters since the population is so dense.  

Thanks everyone! 

Keywords:

• King County
• Snohomish County
• Pierce County