House Hacking a Duplex in Oklahoma City

[Kiera Underwood]

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment in Oklahoma City.

Purchase price: $164,000

Cash invested: $7,000

I'm doing my first house hack! Due to renting out one unit and a room in my unit, it has brought my living expenses to $0. Rent is $900 on the other unit, once I move out I'll make ~$300 a month after maintenance and vacancy.

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

I want to use my 10 conventional loans as quickly as I can to maximize how much I can make off of only putting 5% down. I plan to purchase a new property and utilize the house hacking strategy for the next 10 years!

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

I work on a team that's constantly evaluating what's available in OKC off-market. However, one of the investors I was working with actually brought this to my attention from a search I had set up for them on MLS. They passed on it and after I sent it out to several investors that had told me they'd like to look at on-market deals that I come across in addition to our weekly release of off-market properties. No one pulled the trigger, so I took it for myself!

How did you finance this deal?

Conventional Loan.

How did you add value to the deal?

I'll do general make-ready type updates, but I won't be able to raise my ROI much more than where it's at, so I plan to do minimal cosmetic updates.

What was the outcome?

For now I've reduced my living expenses to $0 per month. Once I lease the side I live in, I'll make around $300 a month.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

For my next house hack I won't tell the tenant that I'm the owner. It's too easy for the tenant to take it personally when you develop a relationship with them, but don't want to do a requested cosmetic upgrade or disagree on what needs to be done to the house. Also, it's hard to enforce late fees and eviction notices when you've developed a relationship with your tenant.

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

Alyssa Dyer and Curtis Kupfersmith are on my team and we talk to each other about the investments that help others gain, but also about our personal investments

[Michael Clayborne]

Nice Deal! Awesome to hear your thoughts on your strategy and optimizing the conventional loan process. I assume you're using FHA or VA to get so low down? I'm closing on a deal next week using VA with 0% down.