House hacking as a family — where would you do it?

Question

We are a family of 5 with kids aged 1, 2, and 4. We are currently living in the San Diego area. We:

- want to start house hacking- work 100% remote for our own businesses- are looking to move about 1 year from now- should have about $50,000 saved for a down paymentWhich market would you choose in this situation?

We are having a hard time narrowing down our options. Would love somewhere like Maui, but it looks to be out of our budget! :D

We're not interested in areas we've already lived: Portland, Phoenix/Scottsdale, Southern California.

Loren Clive · Answer

I think it's terrible advice to wait to buy, especially if you're serious about buying on Maui. I see this all the time working with buyers. They can't afford what they want, so they never buy when they could have at least purchased a modest investment property as a stepping stone to their dream house. In the meantime, properties appreciate and they still can't buy. As the old saying goes, the best time to buy real estate was yesterday.

Whether or not you decide to house hack, it is important to get into a property and let it start appreciating. Then you can sell it in a couple years, or keep it as a rental which will supplement your income on the loan qualificiation, and buy what you really want.

Mike Neubauer · Answer

@Nicholas Walker - I'm a resident of Maui and have been for most of my life.  Happy to help if you do decide to make this your next spot.  Got all the resources you would need.  Aloha.

Nicholas Walker · Answer

Thanks for the input by the way. It's appreciated!

Nicholas Walker · Answer

We do love big cities, but we'd also like to have a yard for the kids. We'd be willing to give up one or the other, though.

Extended family is in SoCal, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand, so that's not really a deciding factor.

We're planning on moving about a year from now. I'm guessing we'd live in the potential house hack for 1 to 2 years.

Nicholas Walker · Answer

Thanks for the feedback! I'm sure we'll live in Maui eventually, at least for a little while. But we still need to pick a place to live next, as we'd like to leave San Diego about a year from now. I figured we might as well house hack instead of just renting.

Thanks again

Nicholas Walker · Answer

Thanks for the feedback! We don't want to share rooms. We don't care about school zones. But yeah, as safe and "nice" as possible would be great. We enjoy going new places and everywhere sounds fun, so we've had trouble narrowing it down. Was hoping to see what areas other people like and recommend.

Theresa Harris · Answer

Why not look for a duplex-you can live in half, rent out the other half?  How much can you borrow for a mortgage?  Where is your extended family?  What do you like to do (eg want to be in the big city, smaller town in the mountains)?  Are you planning on moving to the new home in a year or only living there for a year?

Hamp Lee III · Answer

Welcome to BiggerPockets!

Why not wait until you can purchase a property in Maui?

If that’s where you and your family really want to move, anywhere else might be settling for what’s behind Door #2.

I lived in Honolulu for a few years and it was amazing. It was a great place for my family.

Go for your dreams!

I wish you all the best.

Mason Liu · Answer

First thing is defining your buying criteria for the househack. Both from a livability standpoint and the numbers standpoint. What type of home? School zones and safety? Rents in the area? Price appreciation over the years?

Once you have that, I would recommend creating a list of all the cities you would like to live in as the first criteria. After creating the list, start with the first city and start looking at specific zip codes and neighborhoods from a numbers perspective. Don't need to spend too much time here, just go on zillow and look at a few of the recently sold homes in your budget, look at rent (specifically rent by the room numbers), and see if the numbers work for you. If the first city doesn't work, try the next...etc until you get to the right one.

I personally househack in South Florida, specifically palm beach county. Expensive market, so the goal is just for my roommate to subsidize my monthly payment. Everyone's goal is going to be different, and a lot of that is dependent on the market. With $50k for a downpayment and all other closing costs / move in expenses, you can look at most markets if using a FHA loan.