House Hacking While Living In and Budget Improvements

[Algerson Andre]

My wife and I just closed on our first investment property, which we will be house hacking a dupelx for the next couple of months. The goal is to live in one unit (3bd/1bth) and make updates while living in, and at the same time, rent out the bottom unit (3bd/1bth). Since this is our first go around at house improvements and landlording, I thought this would be a good forum to pose the question to folks who've been doing this for a while.

My main question is... how did/do you approach creating a timeline and budget for making certain updates while you're living inside the unit. For example, here's a short list of things we'll be looking to update while living in the unit:

- Clogged upstairs bathroom drain

-Need bathroom fan

- Bathtub porcelain chipped

- Broken balcony door

- Broken kitchen window

- Missing smoke detectors

- Redo kitchen floors

- Refinish living room floors

- Paint in all rooms

- Improve kitchen cabinets

We don't have a specific $$ budget, but we're always looking to keep costs low while providing quality. Based on the list above, are there certain areas/tasks that you would tackle first before others? What's the best approach to set a budget if you've never done home improvement projects? Appreciate any responses on this!

[Algerson Andre]

@Alan Bailey appreciate that and couldn’t agree more. Windows and smoke detectors will be our first go to purely for safety concerns. We waived the inspection to get this deal, but will be getting one done before we spend money on anything else as to know upfront if there are any major cap exp concerns. Swinging by a Home Depot and just asking questions sounds like a good first stop. I’d like to learn some basics as we get into the landlord’s game but I think we’d defined be hiring this out, so shopping around and comparing estimates will probably be our next move.