HOA Provisions destroy my house hack idea.

[Ramon Melero]

I recently bought a house in Las Vegas to try to do a house hack while I save up for a pure investment property. During the purchase I was asking my agent and his assistant to provide me with the HOA bylaws so I could go over them. Due diligence expired and I got the bylaws the day before closing.

I went through the bylaws, and it has a provision that I can only rent the entire unit in it's entirety for at least 3 months.

So I had the option of losing 5k EMD and let go of a great house with pretty much everything I wanted and start the search all over. So I bought it.

I was hoping to rent out by the room, and seems that if I want to do that, I'm going to have to try to fly under the radar of the HOA. I suspect this is a disaster in the making.

Since it's an owner occupied loan, I technically can't rent it out completely without being in violation of the mortgage. 

I was aggressive in trying to get the bylaws from my realtor, but they told m there was nothing they could do to force the sellers agent to provide it. I even tried reaching out to the HOA management company, and they told me they don't provide the bylaws to non-owners.

My business model was going to be 30+ day furnished rentals by the room. 

Should I try to sell the house for a profit while the market is still hot? An issue with that is that it appraised for 400 and I bought it for 420. So I imagine the house will still appraise for 400 and need to find someone willing to pay a little more than 420, and hopefully break even. I want to avoid this because then I'm back to where I started and need to find another property. 

Or should I just wing it and try to fly under the radar and rent the furnished rooms out for about a year while I get another property and rent out the entire unit? I think this is my best option.

Should I stay away from airbnb/booking.com/etc and try to find roommates? This will probably be the safest option, but it's still technically against the HOA, but less chance of neighbors finding out with longer term renters.

Another option is to abandon the house hack idea, but I'm a single guy in a 3 bedroom house. Massive waste of potential income. I can afford it, but I should have just rented/purchased a high rise 1 bedroom by the strip for less money. FML.

Luckily it seems that the HOA management company is large and busy, and I think the only way I would get busted is if one of the neighbors rats me out.

I really hate that I'm in this situation, but I guess I should have known to avoid HOAs. Lesson learned, but what do I do now? 

[Bill B.]

You definitely didn’t have to buy it. You get 3 days in Las Vegas to examine Hoa cc&rs and their financials. You even have to sign a statement saying you had three days to examine them and agree to them. Nobody would have stopped you from doing what you signed you had done. I’ve tried to turn in my 3 day notice after a day and they said ut didn’t matter. I still had to wait 3 days to close as I could change my mind. 

You definitely don't want to use Airbnb/vrbo without the permits.business license and sound monitoring equipment if it's not too close to an existing STR. You will get busted and pay fines waaaay in excess of the rent.

As far as selling you’d have to get well in excess of $450 just to break even. You’re better off renting to friends/co-workers/relatives only< as a friend would do if it’s unaffordable as is.