First property! Denver House Hack

[Travis Hatch]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Denver.

Purchase price: $405,000
Cash invested: $15,150

My first property, doing a single family house hack. 3 bedrooms upstairs, 1 in the basement. Renting the 3 upstairs bedrooms to live for free, building a room in the basement for cash flow.

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

Originally looking for a multi family house hack, the numbers weren't working. It started to make sense to work the single family house hack, and then this deal came along which worked out great so far!

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

This is an off market deal that I found through a family member. My aunt is a real estate agent in Maine who got a call from someone who wanted to buy a house from them in Maine and needed to sell their home in Denver. I was with her at the time, so I spoke with the seller and we handled the whole thing off market.

How did you finance this deal?

Conventional loan, 3% down

How did you add value to the deal?

Buying below MLS value, and building an additional bedroom

[Jeff White]

@Travis Hatch Great job man! Sounds like a really good deal, especially in Denver. I personally have done rent by the room house hacking, and it has the best ROI easily and really not that challenging if you choose good roommates.

Also, add a egress window in the basement if you plan to rent it or live down there. They go for about $3-4k in Denver for one, and they will give you piece of mind if a fire happens and they can exit safely. 

[Jeff White]

@Travis Hatch Great job man! Sounds like a really good deal, especially in Denver. I personally have done rent by the room house hacking, and it has the best ROI easily and really not that challenging if you choose good roommates.

Also, add a egress window in the basement if you plan to rent it or live down there. They go for about $3-4k in Denver for one, and they will give you piece of mind if a fire happens and they can exit safely. 

[Travis Hatch]

@Jeff White Thank you Jeff!  I see you had something similar in Northglenn a little while back.  I'm excited about it as my first property!  That's a really good point about the egress and I definitely plan on building one - do you know by law if there needs to be one per bedroom, or one per basement?

[Greg Szymbor]

@Travis Hatch

Great job, off-market house hack first deal combo, gotta love that! Sounds like you have set yourself up with a great foundation for a solid financial future. 

[Jeff White]

@Travis Hatch Thanks, it worked out great up there!  You will do great with your first one and learn so much. 

Technically, to call it a conforming bedroom, you need an egress window in there. For the rest of the basement you don't need one.  

[Kevin T.]

@Travis Hatch Congrats on the deal! I am looking into house hacking myself for my first property. I have a couple of questions on house hacking if you do not mind answering them. Was it hard for you to find renters? How did you advertise? How do you figure out what price you should charge for rent? Lastly, what amenities did you include? 

[James Carlson]

Congrats @Travis Hatch. A lot of people post on here. Fewer take the action. Awesome to hear you're taking a big step.

And I'll just reiterate what @Jeff White said. Denver law requires that a legal bedroom have two exits and that the window exit be big enough for a firefighter with full equipment on to fit through. That is called an egress window. While many landlords might rent out a "non-conforming" room (i.e. without an egress window), it's a short-sighted effort. If something happens and you get sued, kiss your returns goodbye. Not to mention the guilt of someone being injured.

Good luck with everything!