First house hack in the greater Seattle area as a 22 year old

[Rand Knutson]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Tukwila.

Purchase price: $756,000
Cash invested: $37,800

This was my very first real estate purchase, a 6bd/3ba house hack in Tukwila, WA. (Just outside of Seattle)
I bought this deal off-market from Todd Baldwin, a previous guest on the BP podcast who did house hacks in the greater Seattle area.
He already had it set up as a room rental, so I was able to just move into one of the vacant rooms as soon as a lease was up, and transitioned extremely seamlessly to being the new owner.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I wanted to invest in real estate since I was 18 in high school and first listened to the BP podcast. I saved up heavily ever since, and was able to use the four years of savings for the downpayment on this house hack.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

I found this deal by connecting with Todd Baldwin, a previous guest on episode #392 of the BP podcast.

He was selling this as a turn-key room rental off-market.

How did you finance this deal?

I used a 5% down conventional loan.

How did you add value to the deal?

Right now I'm paying about $200/mo to live here, and when I move out, I should see around $600/mo in cash flow. Cash flow was not nearly the best benefit of this deal, as the market has done extremely well in the year that I've owned it, and it definitely made me a great equity return with luck-based appreciation.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

I learned that a 5% down loan is far more desirable than an FHA 3.5% down as you can remove PMI from the mortgage without refinancing.