Is it possible to house hack with you partner?

[Tomas Nuno]

Hey all, is it possible to use the house hacking strategy when buying a single family house with a significant other? 

[Andrew Bosco]

yes! my clients have done it. depending who is on the deed. plus, you can rent by the bedroom. highly recommend. 

[Anthony Swain]

Hey @Tomas Nuno,

House hacking with a significant other can be a super power! 

Single family house will require you both to be creative and adaptable, but it is definitely possible. 

I have clients that recently purchased a large single family home that was converted to two units. They plan to rent out one of the units, while they will be splitting costs between themselves too. 

If could still do same strategy without it being completely separated. Maybe you could have a walk out finished basement? Or a separate area of house with private entrance/exit? Maybe a garage conversion or ADU.

There are many ways you can do it! It all depends on your creativity and adaptability. 

Good luck Tomas! Keep us posted!

[Rick Albert]

Yes, I did it with my wife and we are still doing it. There are a couple of things you need to consider:

1. What are each other's goals? This is in the short term and long term.

2. What are your tolerances? My wife didn't want roommates but was willing to have a second unit on the property, as long as it was private.

3. What is your current financial situation and how does that fit into house hacking?

[Tomas Nuno]

Thank you @Anthony Swain!

This might be a dumb question but would it be possible to use my significant other as my "roommate" to qualify for a house hack? For instance if I was buying a single family house 2bed 2bath, could I say she was going to be renting one room and will be paying X amount. Would that qualify as a house hack?

[Tomas Nuno]

Quote from @Rick Albert:

Yes, I did it with my wife and we are still doing it. There are a couple of things you need to consider:

1. What are each other's goals? This is in the short term and long term.

2. What are your tolerances? My wife didn't want roommates but was willing to have a second unit on the property, as long as it was private.

3. What is your current financial situation and how does that fit into house hacking?

 Do you and your wife stay in one market or do you move around often?

1. Goals short term are to have our own space together. Long term is to have a long term investment with a back up plan of flipping the property.

2. Definitely no roommates, were hoping to have our own private spot. Either a duplex or a second unit property depending on how private it is.

3.I have around $30k saved and live in California. I'm looking at other states to invest since it's so expensive here in Ca.

Thanks for the insight and questions Rick!

[Jana Crum]

Hey @Tomas Nuno, one of my friends is in a similar situation. Her significant other bought their residence while she bought an Airbnb (very successful!) and pays rent in their primary. Technically it's a house hack since you are reducing the expenses coming out of your personal pocket.

However, if you guys are looking to build your finances together as a unit and you look at it as all money coming into the home is in one pot- then no it's not a house hack. Since from this viewpoint money is coming into 1 pot & coming out of that same pot to pay for your housing expenses, there's no discount on the household housing expenses. For your situation, I think it is all about how you look at your & your girlfriend's money. 

Why not look for a duplex or a property with an ADU so you can do a true house hack & just live together with your girlfriend without trying to force a house hack from a roommate situation?

[Rick Albert]

I'm on my second house hack (condo) and then my wife and I house hacked our ADU/Main House. First we lived in the ADU and the moved to the main house.

The next house we buy we don't intend to house hack, unless it is some great deal.

If you can house hack here, I would start here before going out of state. You can utilize equity and appreciation to then buy out of state. That's what I did.

[Alecia Loveless]

@Tomas Nuno I have house hacked with 2 separate partners for almost 30 years.

My current partner isn’t as enthusiastic about sharing the building with a tenant but does see the immense benefit to having rental income to help offset expenses.

We typically take out cash flow 1X per year close to the end of the year based on what is left in the operating account and our thoughts on proposed work to the property the following year.

If it were just me I would gladly move from building to building every 12-14 months to grow the portfolio but my partner is more risk averse and likes the location and configuration of our current home.

Make sure you’re on the same page with your partner and that your goals are aligned. Spell out the financial responsibility of each of you.

If you’re not yet married I would recommend a partnership agreement that spells out your agreed upon exit strategies in the event that things go wrong with the investment or your relationship.

[Wale Lawal]

@Tomas Nuno

House hacking with a significant other can be a profitable strategy for real estate wealth building and reducing living expenses. It involves renting out extra rooms, adding an ADU, converting unfinished spaces, or splitting the home into a duplex. Benefits include shared financial responsibility, increased savings, and valuable landlord experience.

Good luck!

[Kerlous Tadres]

Quote from @Tomas Nuno:

Hey all, is it possible to use the house hacking strategy when buying a single family house with a significant other? 

Hey Tomas,
Yes, you can house-hack with a significant other in a single family home. You would just be looking for properties that have ADU's or a property where you can build an ADU. The best way to house hack in my opinion though is to buy a duplex and grow your portfolio from there

[Winsome Lewis]

Hey @Tomas Nuno - I know that The House Hacking Strategy is a great book to help answer some of those initial house hacking questions you have, especially when it comes to investing with an S.O. I'll link it here. 

[Tomas Nuno]

Quote from @Jana Crum:

Hey @Tomas Nuno, one of my friends is in a similar situation. Her significant other bought their residence while she bought an Airbnb (very successful!) and pays rent in their primary. Technically it's a house hack since you are reducing the expenses coming out of your personal pocket.

However, if you guys are looking to build your finances together as a unit and you look at it as all money coming into the home is in one pot- then no it's not a house hack. Since from this viewpoint money is coming into 1 pot & coming out of that same pot to pay for your housing expenses, there's no discount on the household housing expenses. For your situation, I think it is all about how you look at your & your girlfriend's money. 

Why not look for a duplex or a property with an ADU so you can do a true house hack & just live together with your girlfriend without trying to force a house hack from a roommate situation?

Thanks for the insight Jana! And yes makes sense about how we look at our money. A duplex or ADU could work, I was interested in single family houses because in some locations Duplex's/ADUs are less common and SFH typically cost less.

[Tomas Nuno]

Quote from @Rick Albert:

I'm on my second house hack (condo) and then my wife and I house hacked our ADU/Main House. First we lived in the ADU and the moved to the main house.

The next house we buy we don't intend to house hack, unless it is some great deal.

If you can house hack here, I would start here before going out of state. You can utilize equity and appreciation to then buy out of state. That's what I did.

Very cool Rick and congrats on your successes! Definitely would be great to house hack here in CA, it's hard for me to qualify for anything based off my conversations with mortgage lenders. 

[Tomas Nuno]

Thank you for the insight @Alecia Loveless Where do you usually house hack if you don't mind me asking? 

[Bradley Buxton]

@Tomas Nuno

House hacking is the best! Besides having the financing and data in order, take a professional look at you and your partner's relationship.  Communication will be huge when getting connected to a large asset. Go to a counselor even if you have a great relationship. It will help align your life goals and strengthen what you already have or expose any flags that might cause trouble if someone wants to divest...

[Masyn Grant Barney]

There are so many ways to house hack. Many people think of only one or two ways. But anyway you can leverage your primary residence to make $ and lower your personal mortgage obligation than you are house hacking. 

Townhome/condo/SFR - rent by the room

ADU / multifamily units - self explanatory

Storage / Space rental - Rent extra space/bedrooms/garage for storage, driveway for car parking, etc. Here in UT there is a cool company www.neighbor.com that is the Airbnb for storage. 

Do whichever best suits your personal situation! 

[Benjamin Carver]

Here's what my wife and I did. We turned a SFH into an up/down duplex by framing in a locked door at bottom of stairs and adding a kitchen to the lower unit. The home was a split level with a walkout lower level so it was perfect. The noise from upstairs is annoying so next time I'd do more testing of the quality of soundproofing in the ceiling (older home so wasn't as good). But the 2 bedroom apartment upstairs covers most of our monthly payment and we have everything we need with a 1 bed apartment setup down here. Might do the same thing next time around but with 2 bedrooms downstairs and live upstairs.

[Mose Gebremeskel]

Yes, I do with my wife and have never regretted it. Make sure you both talk about the pros and cons and how much you can put down financially. Communication is the most important part.

[Matthew Kwan]

Yes most definitely, however each person are able to acheive 10 maximum conventional loans, so if each properties are applied jointly, then you both would only have 10 active loans/properties instead of 20 loans (10 from each person) So you would want to strategize accordingly and see how you can acheive your maximum potentials and have multiple properties with your partner.

@Carlos Valencia @Albert Bui

[Albert Bui]

Quote from @Tomas Nuno:

Hey all, is it possible to use the house hacking strategy when buying a single family house with a significant other? 

 You can do everything from strategizing your incomes together or individually and loans jointly or loans borrowed jointly to maximize the 10 total financed properties. Some people dont even intend to get that many however if you are trying to maximize 10 from each partner/person then you'd try to qualify and hold title separate for your own 10 prperties (10 + 10 = 20 total properties).

You can also look at credit aspects as well but typically lenders will use the lowest of the 2 middle scores (3 scores per person but will use the middle score).

So the most important aspects are the income to qualify for the loans in the case of full documentation loans. If you're going for non full documentation loans then there are other methods to qualify as well (rental income/ bank deposits/profit and loss/no income/etc) but these loans have higher rates and costs typically.

[Cory Vitale]

Quote from @Tomas Nuno:

Hey all, is it possible to use the house hacking strategy when buying a single family house with a significant other? 

Absolutely! I've done this four different times with my (now) wife using condos, duplexes and triplexes. I highly recommend it as a way to grow your portfolio with less money down. 

One of the regrets I had after gaining some experience: we could have qualified independently for FHA loans that we took on together before we were married. Since we had already formed a trust, I wish we had only taken loans out in one of our names at a time before we were married.

We could have therefore remained in compliance with the rules to only have one FHA loan at a time but not needed to wait so long to refinance after the first year expired because the other person would have been eligible to open a second one. Those requirements slowed us down a bit on our usage of FHA loans but now we're happily married anyways!