New to House Hacking: Seeking Tips for Building a Custom Duplex in Long Island, NY!

[Sean Mills]

Hello BiggerPockets Community!

I'm new here and excited to dive into the world of house hacking. My partner and I live in Long Island, both in our mid and late 20s, and we work in tech. Our household income is currently $320k pre-tax, but I might be getting a new job soon, which could bump our income to around $380-400k pre-tax.

Initially, we planned to buy a property and convert it into a duplex, but with houses in our area starting at $650k, we've started considering a different approach. After researching, we found that converting a single-family home into a duplex could cost around $200-300k. Because of this, we're now thinking about buying land and building a duplex from the ground up. This way, we can customize it to our needs and preferences.

Our goal is to live in one half and rent out the other for about 7-10 years, then move on to building our "dream home."

I'm here to learn from all of you and get insights into house hacking, especially with new construction projects. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated!

Looking forward to connecting with everyone

[Jonathan Greene]

Welcome. Thoughts of building are often much better in theory than practice. Unless either of you are in construction, why are you thinking conversion or build instead of renovating an existing multifamily to get the increased equity that way.

Very few areas are pro going from one to two units and zoning is the major issue. Building in Long Island means finding affordable land, which should be very slim.

If you want to do value add for house hacking, your first try should be on an existing two-family that is not in great shape that you can learn to renovate. Your income is very solid, but you don't want to add dead weight to your earnings by going too big, too soon.