Up-and-coming and appreciating neighborhoods for a first-time house hack

[Kollin Ruiz]

Hi all,

I am a 19-year-old college student currently living at home to save money. However, I plan on moving into the city of Milwaukee soon to purchase my very first house hack. I would like to purchase a condo or single-family property and get one or two roommates to cover the mortgage. Ideally, I would like to buy a property for less than 150k. I am wondering if there are any investors in Milwaukee who can provide any insight on which areas I should be looking to buy in which have a good chance of appreciating while also not breaking the bank.  I am also wondering which areas in Milwaukee will be best in terms of my ability to get quality roommates. Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated! Thank you! 

[Nick Harrington]

Hey Kollin - 

I'm an investor myself in the Milwaukee area and also help a lot of house-hacker clients to find their first investment property. 

For 150K, the neighborhoods I recommend that I see long term appreciation are going to be Riverwest, Harambe, Bay View, Washington Heights, and pockets of West Allis. These are neighborhoods that I see a lot of first time investors succeed in, and neighborhoods that I believe in long term. 

Have you considered the duplex route instead of a single family or condo? With a duplex, you can still rent out your bedrooms, you have an additional tenant to offset your cash flow even further, and then down the road you have a rental property that is ideally cash flowing once you move out. This is how I got my start, and it gave me the ability to save up to add further investments to my portfolio and keep it as a cash flowing property long term.