BRRRR / House Hacking

[Jeffrey Hunter]

Good afternoon everyone, 

it is such an amazing day to be alive! I just started reading David Greene's book The BRRRR Rental Property Investment Strategy Made Simple, and I came across a thought that I am sure will be answered somewhere throughout the book. Figured while it was fresh in my mind I'd ask on BP...

When using the BRRRR investment strategy, is it possible to still House Hack a multi-family property (Using BRRRR)?

I have heard before that they're two completely different strategies which confused me a little bit. Look forward to hearing a few responses, thanks!

[Andrew Postell]

@Jeffrey Hunter thanks for the post here. Glad you are reading and learning about the BRRRR Method. The technical answer here is that you could do this, however, it's not the prevalent strategy on a primary home.

Keep in mind that an "average" person, one who doesn't know of any advanced strategies like the BRRRR Method, would likely put 20% down when buying an investment property. So on a $250k home, that's $50,000...and then you have closing costs - so maybe $60,000 out of pocket? That's an enormous amount of money for the average person. Probably impossible really. Even if you did have that much money, how many properties could you buy? One? So we are forced to use the BRRRR Method because the other way is impossible.

But on your own primary home you only need 5% down, or maybe 3.5% down, or even 3% down - and less! My first house, which was a house hack property, I purchased for $3k out of pocket. That's REALLY hard to do with even the best of BRRRR properties.

So while you COULD do it...there's just too many other more simple, less risky ways, of buying my own primary home.

Hope all of that makes sense.