Richmond House Hacking

[Connor Corkrin]

Hey all,

I am in the process of looking for my first home in Richmond, with the intent to house hack either a single family with roommates, or a small multi.

A bit about myself- I am currently on my second deployment, this time with the Army Reserves, and plan to use my VA loan to finance the purchase. 

I'm looking in the Museum District (lived there last year, loved it!), the Fan, Downtown, Carytown, and the surrounding areas. Luckily time is on my side as I do not return until July, however I was hoping to get advice / network with fellow investors.

Please share your thoughts! I'd love to connect.

[Connor Corkrin]

Thanks @Brian Beck and @David Wong,

My reasons were heavily based on my employment being right outside of Baltimore, and my family being there. 

However, I think it's a good move in the market right now as well. I've been watching the Baltimore market very closely since I came overseas in October, and the property prices have been steadily declining. 

I analyze about 5-6 deals a week to keep fresh and informed, and when I started almost nothing made sense for the house-hack I'm trying to do. A few months ago I started seeing more deals make sense, and now there's enough of them to justify shopping around and making a move. 

Generally, the rents in Fed Hill (where I'm buying) are between $700 on the LOW end, and $850-$900 on the higher side per room. 

My plan was to find a 2 or 3 BR property that had a finished basement that I could use as a BR, while renting out the other rooms. There are plenty of townhomes in downtown Baltimore with this, and a TON of them are misrepresented on Zillow/Realtor.com as they won't have the basement square footage listed, or they'll have a very large BR somewhere that could be made into 2. 

Richmond, on the other hand, has cheaper prices per room. Generally by $100-$150 dollars per room cheaper. The housing prices are also much higher in comparison, since Richmond is more "up and coming" with a very hipster scene, so tons of young professionals are flooding in (similar to Nashville and Austin, but a bit more in it's infancy). 

There are definitely opportunities, my best friend who is out here with me just entered contract on a fantastic 5BR SFH that they're turning into a 6BR, and should be able to cashflow well on. But they'll have some risk with trying to fill that many rooms, as well as a decent rehab budget to make it work how they want it to.