House Hack Beginner

[Bryan Nguyen]

Hi, I am very new into restate investing and I got interested when I found out about house hacking. I recently moved and I am currently renting a room in Ventura CA but I want to starting learning how to house hack. Would anyone like share any advice to point me in the right direction? 

Thanks

[Christine Smith]

Hi @Bryan Nguyen! Happy to answer any questions you have.

My husband and I bought in Orange County, CA in 2016 and have house hacked it since. It has a small back house we rent out, and we have a roommate. And we rent our place out to filming productions, and have used Airbnb (before our city banned it), rented to travel nurses, and foreign exchange students!

When we bought our "rent" (leftover cost after rental income) was $500-950/mo. And currently we're refinancing, and we'll  be living in our house for $100 cost; or if we have a filming likely we'll be making $900+ that month. 

We've used every possible way to get our house to pay for itself so if you'd ever like to talk through ideas on that let me know. 

Best advice I could give though would be to screen your tenants well and trust your gut. Use a credit and background checking system (like Cozy). And setup a good lease agreement (meaning detailed). You'll learn as you go, but it's way easier to ease up on restrictions if things are going well than it is to add them later on. So think through things like guests, late fees, parking, common space cleaning, utilities usage and payment, etc.