Call be a bit of a newbie or outdated with the terms, but I recently just learned of the house hacking term and didn't know I've been doing it!
I bought a home in a growing area of Charlotte, NC after realizing that my rent of $1295 for a luxury 1 bedroom 1 bath would be more expensive than an $1000 mortgage.
I had just moved from Upstate NY to Charlotte, NC so relied on the help of a realtor to help me find a growing neighborhood that would allow a single gal to be safe. Since I had moved down the coast for a contracting job, I had a great tax refund that year which assisted my savings for a down payment. I purchased the home for 170k. Monthly mortgage on 1600 sq foot 3/2 was $1000. I had a live in boyfriend who (thankfully) I decided not to put on the mortgage and he paid me $500 a month plus splitting utilities. The area was very up and coming and we had one attempted robbery, but with a dog and another person living in the home I always felt safe.
The first month we purchased the home the house was hit by lightening (blew out all of the electricity) and the water heater went. I had to add a fence for my dog, so first month killed me with 6k in damages/updates.
Because of that first month, we decided to rent out a room for $400 a month as a sublet. They stayed for 4 months. Boyfriend stayed for 8 months, and then it was just me with the mortgage. But again, I was used to paying $1295 in the southend area of Charlotte so I had been saving my half of the mortgage that others were paying during the whole time.
I stayed in that house for another year, when the market exploded. I renovated the kitchen, opened a wall, and improved the master bath with a skylight. During that year I met my would be husband, so we decided as the market exploded to buy another fixer upper and do what I did with my current home, which was sell this one and live in the new one for 2 years to avoid capital gain. I sold the home for 305k, put 40k into renovations and 170k as initial purchase price, and had lived in it so I didn't pay rent...so was happy with my gains.
Important lessons I learned from my first house-hack
-Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Make sure you keep 5% for emergencies. Losing my electric and water heater within the first month made me VERY resourceful
-Don't always trust the home inspection. They can't open the walls to see if all the wiring is up to code. You can HOPE that people believe in karma and they won't just put new outlets on old wiring, but you'd be surprised at what is concealed. Always have a backup plan
