House Hack vs. Long-Distance Investing

[Ben Rothwell]

Hi everyone.  I'm new to Bigger Pockets and somewhat new to real estate investing.  I have been wavering over the best strategy to pursue as my first real deal.  To give some context, I live in New Orleans, where the prices have gotten quite high.  We are debating between a few options:

Option 1: House hack a duplex or triplex. The only issue for this is getting a down payment together. Due to the high cost of homes, we cannot get an FHA loan for an area of town we would like to live in. We can likely get the savings up to that level within the next year but even with a good down payment, the pickings are somewhat slim as most of the units I've looked at are asking too much to make the deal work. Additionally, we would have to sign a month-to-month lease which would increase our monthly rental payment by 10%.

Option 2:  We continue to live in the rental unit (which we are quite happy with) and buy a cheaper unit in a less desirable area (for us) but has potential for more cash flow.  Alternatively, we could look for an out-of-town investment.  This would save us the 10% increase in the rent and give us a bit more freedom in looking at properties.

I should note that we did find one house-hackable property we actually really liked but the major issue is finding a lender that will accept a down payment of less than 20%.

I've been mulling the options over in my head and I was hoping to get some perspective from y'all to help me clarify my thinking.

Thanks in advance!

-Ben