House Hack Newbie in Oregon

[Megan Alan]

Hello BP Community! I discovered the BP podcasts while educating myself about financial literacy & the FIRE movement. As a creative professional historically "allergic to math," I never thought I'd consider real estate investing, but life is full of surprises! I've been a long-time renter in the Portland, Oregon market and would love to purchase my first house hack next year: a duplex or triplex, ideally. 

I'm eager to connect with anyone who can offer advice about finding and analyzing good deals. As I said, math and numbers aren't my strength, but I'm a dedicated student when I put my mind to something, and I know how to read and use a calculator :)

Thanks for reading!

Megan

[Matthew Kwan]

HI Megan,

Indeed, you can definitely househack in a multifamily by living one unit and renting out the other vacant units. The good thing about househacking a legal multifamily unit is that lender allows you to use the vacated units of 75% market rent as an income to offset the potential current mortgage. You can put a little as 5% down payment for conventional or 3.5% for FHA.

Alternative way, is to acquire the 2nd property as an investment property with conventional, while putting 15%-25% down payment. Down payment can be higher than primary, but the good thing is that you won't need that much income to qualify because lenders can you 75% of the market rents for the units of the property. Imagine the 2nd property is a 4plex, each unit can be rented $1500/unit of 75% =$1125 x 4 units =$4500 worth of income to offset your that 2nd property.

@Albert Bui @Carlos Valencia