New Investor looking House Hack

[Jake Schleppenbach]

Hi everybody! My name is Jake and I’m new to bigger pockets, although I’ve listened to seemingly every BP and Real Estate Rookie podcast. My fiancé and I currently live in San Diego, however my job is taking us to the Phoenix area and we are set on house hacking a multi family or doing a live in flip. However after researching the market a bit and looking at possibilities 1) inventory, especially multi family, is extremely scarce and 2) the ones I can find don’t seem to make a whole lot of sense from a numbers perspective. So I guess my question is: am I missing something or is the market such that it’s simply not a great time to get into a multi family house hack? Thank you all for any advice you can lend!

[Bradley Dosch]

Hey Jake, great post and question here. It is definitely tough making a house hack break even with multifamily or traditional single family. In big markets like Phoenix, multi family tends to be scarce and very expensive. Many successful house hacks are done with large single family homes with separate areas (kitchens, living areas, laundry, entrances, etc). Additionally, creative rental strategies help increase the income - Airbnb, traveling nurses, rent by the room, etc. It's obviously a bit more work but once you get it up and running with systems in place it can be pretty cruise control. Good luck Jake!