First time house hacker

[Malik K.]

Hello,

I currently live in Philadelphia but may move in the future to NYC. I was wondering what would be some good areas to consider for a first time house hacker. It seems triplexes or quadplexes are the ones that are best for cash flow with an FHA? Are they harder to manage than duplexes? I was thinking about getting a 1 bedroom for myself and then having 2-3 other 1 bedroom units for renters.

I have a fair amount of savings so I was wondering whether there’s any benefit to putting 20-25% down instead of 3.5%? It seems most properties in good neighborhoods are in the 600k+ range? Will it take years for me to be able to cash flow in that case? I’m trying to figure out if it makes more sense to just do easy investing in the stock market especially if I plan to move out of philly to nyc in the near future. On the other hand people keep telling me there’s never a “good or bad time to buy”.

Sorry for the barrage of questions but would really appreciate any advice/insight! Thanks!