from house hack to 8 unit, good idea or bad idea

[Sam Conway]

Hi Guys!

This is my first post, I have been listening to the podcast for a while now, listened to about 400 of them now, read a few books and etc. Im currently house hacking in the bay area, I have been house hacking for about 4 years now and just refi'd the house. the past 6 months ive been looking at different markets to invest in (indiana, Georgia, Ohio). The original idea was to buy small multifamily housing so duplex-4plex, i really wanted to land a 4 plex for better cash flow and if a tenant or 2 move out the unit will still have some income. I was set on Savannah GA for a bit, but there is very few 4plex's in that area and when there is ive been told its not a great area. GA has a lot of duplex but the cash flow just didnt excite me for the purchase price. this led me to start thinking about buying a bigger mfh unit in a cheaper area. i started looking in Cleveland ohio, entry price point is great, cash flow seems to be great. I know my first hurdle will be commercial loan unless i get a owner financing. 

is there anything i should be thinking about going from house hacking to a 6-10 unit in one jump. i know this isnt the normal thing to do but ultimately this is where i want to end up anyways(medium size mfh, and eventually triple net leases later on). research will obviously be key to everything. has any one else done this or something similar? thanks in advance guys! love this community!

sorry for the super long post, just wanted to give some background on my situation. thanks again!

[Darius Ogloza]

Do be careful about moving to "cheap" markets.  Cheap is cheap for reasons in addition to frequent tenant issues.  Consider the growth prospects.  For example, my father-in-law purchased a house in Toledo Ohio in 1950 for $14,000.  That's the equivalent of about $153,000 in 2020 dollars.  Soaking wet, that house would sell for about $70,000 today, well below the baseline rate of inflation for the past 70 years!  He would have been better off investing in an inflation protected bond by a mile.   A similar house in Marin County California that would have sold for about the same amount of money in 1950 would probably fetch about $1.5 million today.  In choice parts of Santa Clara County (i.e. Silicon Valley) probably $2 million.  The delta in rents follows the same pattern - I was paying about $400 to rent a 2 bedroom apartment outside Toledo in 1985.  Same apartment goes for only $650 today - 35 years later.  It's easy to think you are making money when in fact inflation is eating your lunch.