A Richer Path to a Dream Home

With low inventory of good homes to purchase, what's a first-time homebuyer to do? Sure, buying a fixer upper is a possibility, but there's another (more financially rewarding) option to consider.

With only a 3.5% down payment, a first-time homebuyer could purchase a duplex, triplex, or fourplex! Awesome!!!!!

Wait, did I lose you there? Hear me out, and you'll be glad you did.

You could purchase a multi-unit property (up to four units), live in one of the units, and rent out the remaining units. The rents for the remaining units can pay the entirety of your mortgage (or a major portion of it). Do I have your attention now?

"My income's not high enough to purchase a property that big," you might be saying right now. Au contraire. (I've never used that phrase before in any of my writings.) The rents of the other units you're not occupying can be counted IMMEDIATELY as income based on the appraised value of rents in the surrounding area. And you're only required to live in that multi-unit property for a year.

For many first-time homebuyers, this is the ideal way for them to get into a home AND have an investment property. Because you have other parties paying rent for the remaining units in your property, more often than not, those rents are paying the entire monthly mortgage payment (or a ginormous chunk of it). When you've lived in your property for a year, you can move out, slide in an additional renter, keep the property, and go purchase a single-family residence (white picket fence included) possibly with a bigger yard and a little more room to grow.

Let's recap: only 3.5% down, the possibility/probability that someone else will pay all (or a large portion) of your monthly mortgage, AND an investment property that produces passive income as you move out and buy your dream home. Is there anyone out there who thinks that's bad? I didn't think so.