I hate "house hacking".

[Jonathan Bowen]

I hate everything about the phrase "house hacking". EVERYTHING! The term "house hacking', in my opinion, is derived from the internet culture of hackers; hackers hack websites in order to gain unfair advantages. The same philosophy is apparently being applied to real estate but the internet and real estate are not remotely comparable. The internet is not one physical location but an amalgamation of locations whereas real estate is a specific place in the universe. The internet is made of 0s and 1s whereas real estate is made of concrete, glass, metal, wood or other tangible materiel. You can't hack a house and stay within the local zoning ordinances because the term "house hacking" implies you're black hat. Please find another term for "house hacking" because it makes you sound like an amateur when you use it. The phrase "house hacking" seems to be used on BiggerPockets more than any other site on the internet. In fact, a search on DuckDuckGo reveals BiggerPockets to occupy the first two results when searching for the phrase "house hacking". Maybe use the phrase "owner-occupied multi-family investor" instead? GET OFF MY LAWN!

[James Free]

Get off your lawn, indeed! 

I think you're falling victim to a generation gap. Among many younger people, "hacking" has long since ceased to be solely about computers. Moreover, in the software community, "hacking" is not black hat activity at all; it's simply the job of putting software components together to build something useful. 

The nefarious connotation you imply simply isn't mainstream.

I'm as big a critic of misused language as anyone, but in this case, I think your understanding of the term "hacking" is out of line with the rest of society's.