New to Real Estate · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2024 · 23 posts · 16 votes
Hi everyone!
I'm an incoming medical student at UMass Chan School of Medicine (Worcester, MA). I've also been quite interested in real estate and am looking to work with my parents to potentially do a househack. My fiancé will likely be working in Boston so I've been looking at deals somewhere in between Worcester and Boston. As someone who doesn't have too much experience in any MA markets, how are the multi-families out there? Wondering if there's any possibility for househacks with positive cashflow in any of those areas. Willing to do a bit of work on a property but most likely it will be somewhat turnkey. If the markets are too saturated, I could just rent for a year or so and keep an eye out or something as well.
Banker · Nationwide · Member since 2020 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
1y
Elisha,
I am from Mass but moved to Florida but my sister still lives there and it's a good spot to buy a home. One piece of advice is if you are a medical student and you will be a resident in training you can use the Medical program loan that allows anyone with a Medical degree to buy a home 100% No Money down up to $1-Million dollars and No PMI.
This is somewhat of a house hack because you can buy an any home Single family or a 2-4 unit multifamily. A Multifamily home opens up more of the "Hack" because you immediately gain an investment home since the other units will help pay the mortgage and possibly a good NOI after the fact.
You can use this program multiple times but it’s better to use it for a 2-4 unit first since its very tough to convince an underwriter that you are moving out of a single family home into a 2-4 unit. In most cases you should be moving up or bettering yourself when buying primary homes not moving down another words not going from a large home into a small unit.
You can simply move out in 12 months once you have your tax returns for the new rental income if you need to use it or if not as early as 6 months. The goal is to make sure the home is fully rented and can support itself so that you can "wash" the mortgage to avoid any DTI (debt to income) issues.
You can use this loan similar to a VA loan where a Veteran gets to use their VA entitlement to buy a home 100% No money down. Then you find another home and repeat the process finding another home that can be a replacement to the previous one. Trying to upgrade each time to a bigger home or one that ultimately you really like or offers the ability to have a good ARV in a shorter window to pull cash out.
Real Estate Agent · Worcester, MA · Member since 2018 · 517 posts · 409 votes
1y
@Elisha Johnston Welcome to BP and Worcester. I would be glad to help, am local and deal exclusively with Multis and Househacks. Ironically my son is applying to med school this summer.
New to Real Estate · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2024 · 23 posts · 16 votes
1y
Woah, sorry for the late reply but this is actually such a good thing to know - thank you for letting me know! I had seen this before but didn't actually think about it (didn't expect I would have the privilege of becoming a doctor) so I'm definitely gonna use this as an option. The zero down is amazing. And this makes sense - my first property will, almost guaranteed, be a multi-family. I don't plan on having kids for a while so at least for the next 4-6 years a multi-family is plenty. Thank you for the advice!