@Dan Baran
Hey Dan, I was in your position a year ago and totally understand where you’re at.
Renting by the room on a 4+ bedroom home will be just about the only way to make a househack cashflow here in Denver. I wouldn’t go for small multi family. It’s too expensive here, and the ones that are affordable have a ton of deferred maintenance, don’t appreciate as well, and/or are in sketchy areas.
Before you do anything else, if you haven’t read Craig Curelop’s book on househacking, I highly recommend it. It’s everything you’ll ever need to know on how to make a househack work.
He talks about the “spectrum of comfortability vs. profitability”. On the comfortable side is something like buying a property with a separate guest house, living in the main house and renting the guest. You won’t profit as much but you’ll be very comfortable (and it’s still winning). On the other side is renting by the room in a large 5-6+ bed house. You wont be as comfortable, but in Denver it’s possible to cashflow 1-2K while living in your house. Of course you can always fall somewhere in between.
Using that spectrum figure out your goal. Ours was cashflowing $1000+ while living in our own house (just like Craig Curelop did), which meant that we had to live with 5 roommates and give up some comfort. We were totally ok with that. So your goal is completely up to you, but you need to set one in order to build your buying criteria (property type, location, holding time, etc.)
Then what I would do is connect with a rockstar agent who has specifically helped people househack in Denver and who understands the Denver market very well. Run your goal and buying criteria by them and (if they’re good) they’ll offer you advise on areas to stay away from, which ones to flock to, property types, as well as offer you connections to great lenders, contractors, and other professionals who will become key members of your “team”.
Once you have your goal, team (people), and capital locked down, start looking and putting in offers on places that meet your criteria and ignore ones that dont.
To share our story, My wife and I purchased a 6bd 2bth house in Barnum for 480k in Feb. We put 16k down + 4K in loan costs + 25K in repairs and furnishings = 45K total acquisition cost. We live in the master (with a private entrance) and rent the 5 other rooms out individually for $800 each. Our mortgage + PMI is $2680, so after we take about about $300 every month for reserves, we cash flow $1000 a month while living in our own house. And because we are living in our room for free, that number is actually closer to $2k.
I know that was a lot, but I wish someone had taken the time to walk me through their journey and share their best learning lessons, so I hope that helped. Feel free to PM if you’d like to chat more!
