House Hack Numbers Not Working (after I move out in 12 months)

[Benjamin Sulka]

Hey BP, 

I'm in the market to buy my first multifamily house hack within the next few months. I got pre-approved for $300k but I'm having a lot of trouble finding properties. 

Nothing on-market makes sense as expected. But even at my ideal purchase price, I'm having trouble making the numbers work. I'm taking the most conservative percentages for all of my monthly reserves but I'm not budging on these because I'll never skimp on my numbers to make something work. 

House hacking makes sense to me as long as I'm paying less than I would renting while I'm living there. The problem that I'm having is that I can't get anything even close to breaking even AFTER I move out. 

Would love to hear from anyone's personal experiences on how to navigate this. Should I further expand the radius that I'm looking? I'm trying to stay within 25-30 mins of Cleveland due to work considerations. 

Thanks for any comments!
 

-Ben, aspiring multifamily house hacker 

[Jay Hinrichs]

if your doing fha va then your basically 95% leveraged and you should not expect positive cash flow until rents rise a tad.. have small negative cash flow on a highly levered deal is not a bad thing I you have a quality property and you believe rents and values will rise over time.

Virtually every investor for instance that invests in the SF bay area is negative the first 2 to 5years but then they kill it on appreciation.. I mean life changing appreciation.