All Forum Posts by: Eli Hibbert

I'm hoping to start my real estate journey in Salt Lake City with a house-hack. My goal is to find a first property that will allow me to live for free and save up for the next one. I've begun running the numbers on some properties in the greater Salt Lake City area to better understand the market and I haven't found anything close to breaking even if I were to live there. Granted, I have only been running with Zillow properties without the help of professionals, I was still hoping to see more optimistic calculations.

Am I being too conservative by putting allowances for maintenance, vacancy, and etc.? Has anyone in the Salt Lake area had luck with creating a cash flowing or even cash neutral house-hack? I'd love to hear a success story. Thanks!

Hey Nicholas, thanks for offering to answer some questions. I'm hoping to begin my real estate journey with house-hacking and I want to be confident that I am setting myself up for a path of expansion. My tentative plan is to purchase a multi-family property and rent out as much of it as I can while still using it as a primary residence. As my barrier to entry is having low starting capital, I plan to take out an FHA-sponsored mortgage and put 3.5% down. From here I hope to save a high percentage of my W2 income and afford the down payment for a new property on the year following.

Based upon my research, it looks like a much smaller down payment is required for a new mortgage if it will be considered a primary residence. Is it possible to move to a new house-hack each year and claim the new property as a primary residence while keeping the original mortgage on the first property? What are the roadblocks that I am likely to face with this process?

Thanks a ton!

Eli