Bay Area Housing Choices

[Matthew Sweere]

Hi everyone,

I’m a relatively newbie investor, having successfully house-hacked my first property for the past year. I’m moving to the bay area (South bay area: Sunnyvale, Mountain View, North San Jose) in early spring 2022 for personal reasons. As someone who is always looking to minimize housing expenses and maximize equity gain, I’m considering a few different paths when it comes to investing in a new home. I’m looking for tips/guidance, all of which is helpful!

1. The first option is to do a live-in flip. Does anyone have experience doing this in this market? Or just flips in general? Do you have referrals to off-market deal finders? Trying to balance getting as much equity in initial purchase price with actually needing to live in the property.

2. The second option is to buy a more turnkey type property and renting/Airbnb-ing additional rooms. With my budget and asset-base, I probably can’t afford much more than a 2-bedroom house, unless there’s some off-market ones for less than $750k, so I don’t know how effective this strategy would be.

3. Renting a 2- or 3-bedroom apartment/house that allows me to sublet, where I Airbnb the additional room(s).

TYIA for the help!