House Hacking by Accident

[Ian Magin]

Investment Info:

Townhouse buy & hold investment.

I got lucky and purchased this townhome in 2012 right before the market took off in Houston. In 2017 my wife and I were looking for a rental property and couldnt find anything that made financial sense and we determined we were living in the rental (townhouse in the heights). At that point my companies office moved and my wife was working from home so we moved closer to my office and rented this place out. The rest is history from there. The only updating we did for the first few years was new paint.

In November of 2021 we went in and removed all of the carpet (bedrooms and stairs) and replace with a wood look vinyl and are very happy with how it turned out. Fingers crossed it holds up like it should!

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

Complete accident but in the end it just made sense.

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

Online.

How did you finance this deal?

80/10/10 loan - I was scared to put the full 20% down even though I had enough to cover it.

How did you add value to the deal?

Over the 5 years of living there I did a few updates including: painting all of the walls a more modern gray (previously had 3 different colors), replaced a black toilet and floor in the half bath, and revamped the backyard to remove landscaping rocks and add grass.

I also had roommates most of the time I lived there so that was nice to have someone help split the bills - I gave them below market rent so it was a win-win.