New to house hacking

[Account Closed]

Hello Everyone!

I have some questions about house hacking but I thought I would give an intro to give you a better idea of where I am coming from. If you want to just get to my questions I have separated the two. Thank you in advanced for your time and effort to respond!

INTRO: I am a stay at home mom of two young boys (1 1/2 and 3), I love that I am able to do that but we struggle at times and I have been worried about the idea of getting back into the work force when they start school. 5 years of no job history is going to attract no one and besides who wants a boss?... With real estate investing (house hacking) I am thinking we will be able to have someone else pay our mortgage or at least get a good discount on our monthly payments. Right? I am planning on managing the property with my flexible schedule. I have yet to read Brian Turners books but they are on my list of things to do before we buy anything; which is not for another year. We have some debt we are climbing out and plan to move across country (Texas to Idaho) before we buy anything. Thank you for taking the time to read my intro and now onto my questions!

I am very new to this whole idea so please forgive me if any of my questions are controversial, vague, silly or can be answered with a most helpful article I have yet to come across.

QUESTIONS:

What are the pros and cons to the different multi family units? Duplex, Triplex, four plex and 5+

I am assuming the obvious as far as the more units the more appliances, space, tenants, fixtures etc. to worry about. 

Is there a multi family unit you would suggest for a green horn in rental properties? and why?

Is there a way that we will not have to pay any part of our mortgage out of our pocket?

This might be market specific but is there a multi family unit renters are more attracted to?

What are some amenities to keep in mind to attract renters? 

I've thought of storage, garage, W/D. Not that we plan to limit our search to only looking at properties with these I just think they are things to consider if possible, it is all about what we can afford at the end of the day.

What are some amenities to not bother with?

Are there any questions I should be asking myself?

Other than Brandon Turner's books are there any other suggestions?

THANK YOU!!

[Michael Key]

I'll share some of my insights since we have similar stories.

We have an unusual circumstance in which we've spent the last year and a half traveling the country full-time living out one of our dreams.

But we are ready to settle ourselves now. As I mentioned earlier, we considered the house hacking route. In my mind, if I'm paying for it, I'm not making any money, it costs me money.

We considered moving from property to property. But like you, we have two small children. Ages 2 1/2 and 1 1/2. And very quickly learned we weren't going to get into a duplex quickly. We came to the conclusion we'd like a little more space to spread out too. 

That lead to our change in focus to finding a SFH first, that we can get some appreciation out of, and hold for 2-3 yrs. And then exit by either renting or selling the and rent or sell.

We connected with @StacyA McBain who has been great to work with. And have our first property under contract. (Fingers crossed)

That covers "place to live" for us. And allows us to focus on acquiring additional properties without the added stress of living in the rental. 

In regards to your 2% testing, I feel like 2% is hard. 1% is doable if you find the right deal. I have been told what is happening right now is that rents haven't caught up with home prices in some areas. And are only just now starting to rise.

BiggerPockets has an article about this (https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2016/07/06/landlord-financial-threat/); most investors are more afraid of Physical vacancy than they are of Economic vacancy. And they can be slow to raise rent prices. 

So I wouldn't worry too much that you are going to miss out on deals. There will still be deals to be had, and in another year when rents catch up, there might even be more deals. But again, I'm just speaking from my perspective. Someone more informed on the area, who has been here for a longer time, and working with investors or is an investor, can give you better information.

We are very new to the area and are just fast learners. Biggest advice is learn as much as you can about where you want to invest. And NETWORK.

As for income ideas, my wife and I both changed careers. We are fortunate to have remote jobs with total schedule flexibility.

My wife took a pay cut when she changed careers two and a half years ago. She spent a year working remotely for one company doing customer support and now has a new job with another company doing sort of the same, but doubled her income and now exceeds the income of her previous career. My point being, don't worry about an initial pay cut, if you think it will lead to greater flexibility later.

A year worth of half a salary for both of us to be home with our kids 24/7 was worth the pay cut.

If your husband is looking to change gears, maybe you should start now, and find something that will allow him to work remotely.

My company is based in Paris, France, I've never been to the office.

You can check out a website like weworkremotely.com to find jobs.

And don't discount customer service, remote support engineers make upwards of 100k a year.