House Hacking is Illegal in Arizona! (kind of)

[Scott E.]

I was at a meetup a few weeks ago and about 6-7 of us were sitting around a table talking about our investing experience.

One of the gals was proud of the fact that she just got into her first deal. She was house hacking a single family home with a handful of roommates in Tempe, AZ.

Well somebody else at the table (we can call her Karen for the sake of the conversation) was VERY offended about this "house hacking" strategy that she hadn't ever heard of. Karen was older, maybe in her late 60s. She was a semi-retired real estate agent that was only there in hopes of picking up some buyer clients.

Anyways Karen responded to the house hacking story with something to the effect of "WHAT IS YOUR ADDRESS? ARE YOU AWARE THAT WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS ILLEGAL? YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO LIVE IN THE SAME HOME WITH UNRELATED PEOPLE!"

(I'm not exaggerating, it got a bit awkward and tense)

Thankfully as a group we were able to redirect the conversation, Karen ended up leaving, and we carried on with our night.

Out of curiosity I googled this when I got home and was pretty surprised to see that technically, Karen was right. Is this a rule that is really enforced? Are there any other cities out there with similar rules?

Link to Ordinance

[Lawrence Potts]

I’m guessing it depends on municipalities/cities/counties. Karen did a poor job generating leads 🤣

I could see this being “enforced” in college towns/denser populated areas. My guess is they are trying to control parking and neighborhood safety. Colleges will do this: 6 of us hacked a 3 bed townhouse with one garage. We got creative with parking and resorted to riding our bikes as often as we could so we wouldn’t lose our parking spots.

It could be compared to some cities creating rules about Airbnb usage too. Our local counties state that you can only Airbnb ADU's if you're living in the main house or a main house no more than 2 bedrooms. But there are plenty of Airbnb's in our area over 2 beds.

I guess technically she’s right but in all the wrong ways 🤣🤦🏻‍♂️