First home in Seattle

[Aaron Wong]

Hi all! 

I am a New Yorker moving out to the Seattle area and am looking to buy my first home. I have been looking at houses in the UDistrict, Ravenna area and wanted to get some feedback on my findings. I have been primarily looking at houses with 3+ beds and 2+ baths. My plan was to live in one of the bedrooms and rent out the other two.

My criteria:

• 3 or more beds
• 2 or more baths
• Up to $750k

I would be using a 30 year conventional mortgage with 20% or more down. 

Assuming I could get $1k rent per room which I think might be really optimistic, I'd have to put upwards of 40% down to make this purchase cheaper than renting (assuming $1k a month rent that covers utilities, which I was able to find while I was in Seattle a few months ago). This does not even take into consideration any maintenance that I would have to do and still leaves me with negative cash flow. 

If I were to go the renting route, I'd pay ~$1k a month with all my utilities covered and I would have the $300k I would use as down payment to put into an ETF or something. With this information, my question is, does house hacking still make sense for me? Ideally I would like to put down less but that does not seem to be an option in these neighborhoods. I am pretty set on the neighborhoods due to the proximity to the university and the light rail station to downtown.