First Investment House Hack

[Glenn Haave]

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment in North Miami.

Purchase price: $269,000
Cash invested: $37,000

House Hackinging Duplex in North Miami, FL. We used a FHA loan, $7,000 down, and our real estate license (commission) to cover closing costs.
So far we’ve spent $37,000 to remodel one side. We did electrical, plumbing, kitchen, tiles, bathroom, and a firewall plus some miscellaneous items. It had tenants in the beginning so we made 3 months of cash flow until their lease ended. We’re looking forward to finishing the remodel. Permits and capital held us back a bit. All in all no regrets!

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

I wanted to have my living expense covered or atleast almost all of it. Finacial independence!

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

I asked my wife to put us on an automatic list of duplexes in specific locations that I felt like I’d like to live relative to my employment (I’m a geologist). Under $300k

How did you finance this deal?

FHA Loan

How did you add value to the deal?

$30,000 remodel to one side so far. The other side is expected to be $15,000 cause we already built a firewall, pulled permits, and did plumbing.

What was the outcome?

We’re living in one side and still remodeling the other side. Despite Covid-19, I’m fortunate to have employment and my wife still has real estate deal closings to continue paying for the remodel. Imprecation action.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Go with the more expensive contractor cause we would have finished the remodel long time ago.

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

My wife was the agent

[Glenn Haave]

Thanks for your reply @Jesse Byrer

Honestly, I should have shopped around for more lenders. We chose to go with the lender we went with because he had serviced some of our other clients.

Ideally, I wanted to do the FHA 203k, but that was my mistake.