Our First House Hack

[Greg Dorn]

Investment Info:

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

Purchase price: $251,000
Cash invested: $20,000

Our little house hack. We bought a duplex and took about 8 months to do a live in renovation on one side. It is now up on Airbnb as the 'Diamond In The Rough Duplex'. Plans are now to refinance out and start saving for the next deal.

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

Easiest way to start out with investing. Has been great for our small family starting out on this journey

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

NMLS. My wife got her realtors license and we offered at the asking price with some negotiations for repairs as a credit (we wanted to do the work to make sure it was done correctly).

How did you finance this deal?

My wonderful wife was a Veteran so we did a VA loan.

How did you add value to the deal?

Property was in extreme need of a face lift. We have redone one side so far and are living in the un-renovated unit.

What was the outcome?

The airbnb we run out of the other half covers the whole mortgage, utilities, and property expenses most months which means we basically live for free right now most months. For tax purposes it makes about 5k in profit per year.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

I dont like having a mortgage I pay for myself so love house hacking. Learned that I will probably need someone else to do the work so it gets done in a timely manner. Always scope the plumbing as there are some bigger issues we still have not addressed.