House Hacking Advice

[Saige Wigge]

Hello! My wife and I are about to buy our first home. We are both pretty young (22) so we are not walking around with tons of cash, but we think this is the perfect time to start investing. We are going to buy a duplex to live in and rent the other side out, so we can “live for free”. This being our first and main residency we can take advantage of a 3.5% down payment. My plan is to invest the money we would normally pay for the mortgage into another down payment for a rental. I understand by doing that I will at least have to have a 20% down payment. However, that got me thinking. If instead of buying a house to rent, what if we bought another house to live in while we rent out both sides of the duplex. Then buy another and keep repeating the process. I understand that technically that would be our second home. So my question is, is this a good investing process when you’re short on cash? Would we still have to pay a 20% down payment or are there any ways around that? Also any other recommendations for investing young? Anything is appreciated, thank you! 

[Daniel Haberkost]

Originally posted by @Saige Wigge:

Hello! My wife and I are about to buy our first home. We are both pretty young (22) so we are not walking around with tons of cash, but we think this is the perfect time to start investing. We are going to buy a duplex to live in and rent the other side out, so we can “live for free”. This being our first and main residency we can take advantage of a 3.5% down payment. My plan is to invest the money we would normally pay for the mortgage into another down payment for a rental. I understand by doing that I will at least have to have a 20% down payment. However, that got me thinking. If instead of buying a house to rent, what if we bought another house to live in while we rent out both sides of the duplex. Then buy another and keep repeating the process. I understand that technically that would be our second home. So my question is, is this a good investing process when you’re short on cash? Would we still have to pay a 20% down payment or are there any ways around that? Also any other recommendations for investing young? Anything is appreciated, thank you! 

As long as you stay in each house for a year you can do this legally. The main concern with this strategy is the fact that you're coupling 1.) highly leveraged properties with 2.) lack of capital. 

Moving ahead with the duplex for your first house-hack is great. But if you do this each year (and don't increase your income/capital reserves/equity) it could end up badly. You never know when you'll get hit by significant repair expenses or vacancy/problematic tenants so you just want to be sure when you buy properties 2, 3, 4 etc. that you have capital set aside for expenses and (ideally) more equity in the property so that if you need to sell you can. 

-Dan