Duplex house hack - is it worth it?

[Jasmine Anderson]

I am very close to putting in an offer on a duplex to house hack, but I'm wondering if I should follow through or continue to wait for something better. A few minor details:

My fiance and I have been looking for a 1-4 unit property to house hack now for over a year. We quickly found that our market doesn't provide too many of these, and the areas where they do have them are way over priced. Our wedding is in May and we need to find a place to live pretty much asap (we do not currently live together). We finally found a property that doesn't need too much work and won't require too much improvement before move in and seems like the perfect live in investment property on paper, but I'm not as excited about the numbers as I should be. On a very basic level, we plan to put in an offer for $265k (quite below asking price). PITI is estimated to come out to about $2,070 at that price point. I will be using an FHA loan. After pulling rental comps in the area we think we could rent out the smaller unit for about $1,150 and the larger unit for about $1,300 once my fiance and I move out of it. That said, if we buy it our monthly out of pocket mortgage payment would still be about $920 if the numbers work this way and cash flow once we move out and rent the other unit would only be about $380, which is what I feel you should expect from a single family property, not a duplex. I've always expected to buy a 2/3/4 unit and have the tenants pay off the mortgage while I live for close to free, but that isn't the situation that I'm finding myself in.

I'm hoping to get the opinions of other investors. On one side, I feel like I should suck it up about the numbers and follow through because we've been looking for so long for a property, if we pass who knows when the next one will come along. We would still have an investment property that has cash flow (however small it may be) and would always have the option to refinance later and increase rents over time. What are your thoughts for someone in my situation with these concerns? Any input or advice is much appreciated!

PS: if we decide not to proceed on this particular property, our alternative options would be to either buy a single family house and find a way to turn it into an investment "eventually" or renting until the market falls low enough to get better pricing on properties. Neither of these options are ideal to us