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House Hacking
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Updated over 1 year ago, 06/30/2023

User Stats

64
Posts
14
Votes
Roger Simons
  • Los Angeles, CA
14
Votes |
64
Posts

99% of houses are not optimized for house hacking. They need a makeover.

Roger Simons
  • Los Angeles, CA
Posted
The ultimate house hack maximizes the space.  In my area rents are about $500 for a 100 sq ft room.  The problem is a typical house only has 3 bedrooms and its probably 2000 sq ft.  That's pretty ridiculous....$1500 for something that would probably cost $250,000?  That mortgage is going to take forever to pay off.  So let's visualize the space is used mainly for the bedrooms.  One kitchen that all the bedrooms link to is in the center minimizing hallways.  Say the interior walls are about 6" thick.  So every room takes up 6" in wall space because they share one wall except for the end ones.  Natural light is for the bedrooms, not the kitchen.  The bathroom is beside the kitchen keeping the plumbing together.  Now thinking like this, imagine how many 100 sq ft bedrooms one can now fit in 2000 sq ft.  Also some may have a private entrance to give more flexibility indoors.  Doors waste a lot of space after all.  Maybe 10 bedrooms now?  So the rent went from $1500 to $5000.  Not bad.  

Since most people buying real estate are utterly clueless when it comes to revenue you can't assume you're going to find good space utilization in almost any layout today with their spacious livin, dining and rec rooms, often open concept which is the nail in the coffin when it comes to maximizing space.  You want smallish, well soundproofed rooms so your tenants aren't disturbed by others.  So they feel peaceful and quiet at home, like they should.  So they can talk loudly on the phone without being heard, so they aren't hampered by privacy concerns.  The only way to get this at a reasonable price (nobody sane builds from scratch these days) is to get a damaged property really cheap and use that discount to renovate it to maximize revenue for house hacking.  And this is done quite often actually.  We often don't hear about it because wrecks don't tend to get advertised much.  They are quietly sold and usually to a developer who is going to mindlessly transform it into one more single family occupancy to clutter our landscape even further with wasted space.  What I'm proposing would dramatically increase the number of units available in the area if adapted on a large scale.  It could transform rental challenges today which so many people are complaining about and rightly so.  

What I'd like to find are websites that focus on space utilization in house hacking.  I have never heard anyone discuss it with any amount of depth.  Nothing comes close to this level of revenue and it can be utilized for short term renting which can result in 50-100% more income than monthly rentals if the location cooperates.

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