HCOL house hacking

[Nick Johnson]

Hello,

I made a beginner post recently about trying to break into real estate investing and had a lot of helpful responses. I live in a HCOL area (NY) and thought the only way to get a deal is to do it out of state. Many people responded I should house hack first in my area to get a handle on how things work before blindly investing out of state. 

I currently have never owned a home and am looking for something to house hack. It seems the only affordable option I have is to find a SFH mother daughter which don't come up very often and rent a portion out while I live in. I am looking to buy in an area that I would eventually want to settle in and collect rent for a few years to help pay my mortgage and if I want to, eventually take over the whole home as my family home in the future.

Average Houses are around 600k where I am living which means if I put 20% down I’ll be looking at a payment around 4500$. If I am able to find a house that works I could maybe collect a little less than half of that. I am aware of running numbers and what is good or not if I were buying something to rent completely but in this instance the best I’ll get is a portion of the mortgage payment  in rent in the areas im looking at. I basically just want some advice from people who have done something similar. Does it make sense to do this? I understand nothing will cash flow positive doing this in my area but it would at least help with payments. 

Any guidance helps. Thanks.