"House Hacking" as a family of 5

[Sara Campbell]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Fayetteville.

Purchase price: $125,000

Self managed Buy & Hold residential property near Fort Bragg, NC. We bought this home and lived in it for one year. During that year we did the best we could to make small improvements such as repairing the deck and cleaning the overgrown backyard. After the year was up we bought another primary home and make this one into a long term rental property.

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

As a family of 5 true house hacking in a multi-family unit can be difficult. We like this method of house hacking so our family can live comfortably while still making progress on our real estate goals.

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

We found this deal on the MLS and negotiated it using a local realtor.

How did you finance this deal?

We financed this deal through Navy Federal Credit Union. We put 10% down, no PMI, 2.75% interest rate, 15 year mortgage. I don't recommend NFCU very highly. They were the lowest interest rate for us but they weren't very easy to work with.

How did you add value to the deal?

We added value to the deal by installing a security system, cleaning up the backyard, repairing the deck, and other small cosmetic improvements.

What was the outcome?

We are in our 2nd year of self managing this property as a rental unit. We just signed a new lease with a tenant for $1,600/month with cashflow coming in at about $500 or more per month. We've paid the mortgage down to $95k in the 2 years we've owned it and hope to have it be our first debt free property in the next few years.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Lesson learned: Even "good" tenants who pay on-time every month don't always take care of the property.
Give yourself at least a week to turnover a property after a tenant moves out

Challenges: Our first tenant left large holes in the walls and a lot of personal items in the house upon move out. We were very surprised because we did a walk through a few months earlier and saw no damage. Now we know to expect turnovers to take longer.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

We worked with Heck Furmage at Coldwell Banker Advantage. His number is 910.988.0947. He was very responsive, quick to schedule showings, quick to submit offers, and all around easy to work with.