Preparing to start my wealth building journey through house-hacking

[Eric Thomas]

Greetings all, 

I'm currently educating myself on rental property investing using several resources from BiggerPockets.com and other books and tools. I've recently secured a significant bonus from work which will allow me to pay off some consumer debt (credit cards, collections, etc.) to build better credit and save about $15,000 to begin my investing journey. I plan to house-hack a triplex or quad financed through NACA or an FHA loan.

Before I jump in, I'd like to know if there are any other personal financial actions I should take before investing in my first property. I'm looking forward to being a part of this community and learning.

[Lawrence Potts]

Welcome @Eric Thomas!

Glad to have you here and BP is definitely the place to get your questions answered. I've heard of NACA and I think it's a great way to get your foot in the door as a first time purchase. I know that you are only allowed to hold one property with NACA; they won't lend you more than one owner occupied mortgage at a time. But I have a client currently going through the process to buy their first house to house hack while he attends college. Lots of perks with NACA.

I think the big thing to focus on that I needed to work on when I first got started was to manage my house hold. Get my budget under control. Know where every single dollar was going. Building good habits that reflected the type of investor I needed to be to attain my goals (if that means not eating out as much, starting a side hustle, getting rid of bad debt, etc.). The other action I'd recommend is find a mentor or two that can be overseeing you in this journey. And the best way to find a good mentor is looking to better and serve them and their journey. You'll learn along the way and it's a better way to build a business and relationship rather than just asking for a mentor and having no skin in the game or the relationship.

Hope that helps! Let us know what you're able to find and don't hesitate to ask questiosn here!