All Forum Posts by: Rick DiAgostino

@Alison Kopcko

In Dec. 2019 my wife and I purchased a duplex house hack with an FHA 203K loan in central NJ close to that area. The 203k was great for us and we found a very reliable 203K contractor in the area. If you have any question please reach out.

@Briana Gilbert

Best of luck to you! I inherited tenants in my house hack so I am not certain how difficult it is to find tenants unfortunately. But from my experience when I was on the market looking for a house hack it was very common for MFHs to be listed with one apartment available and one with a tenant.

I got very lucky and my tenants are great! No headaches at all. They've been on the house for 5 years prior.

@Katelyn Kelly

Yeah my wife and I were very happy when we found our house! It's a gem. Our house was interesting because it is a little bit of a fixer upper and it's on a train line that does not goes directly to NYC. Perfect wedge deal. So we decided to stay in budget we would look on the raritan valley line. You should check out that train line and look into Plainfield NJ and the surrounding towns! There are some very nice and very affordable multifamily homes there. There are also great multifamily homes in the Carteret NJ/ Perth Amboy NJ area and the surrounding towns there. All those areas are less than an hour to the city.

We also used redfin as our app or choice for finding houses. They have a great filter for multifamily homes.

I'm sure there are other areas that would be a good fit, but when I was looking these were the only areas that met my criteria.

@Vickiana Ortega

I am a new investor in middlesex county. I am house hacking a duplex and looking for deal #2 at the moment

@Abdoul Guisset

Back in December 2019 my wife and I purchased a house hack duplex in central jersey for around 340k. When I was looking it was difficult finding a good house hack so close to the city in the areas you listed. I would recommend looking further out where the commute is about an hour and you'll be able to find duplexes in your price range. Middlesex county and ocean county have some great options.

Rick

@Katelyn Kelly

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor. My SO and I purchased a house hack duplex in Middlesex County NJ back in December 2019. Yes you are totally able to find a good house hack in this market, it just depends on where you look. My SO and I both work in NYC and we found a duplex in walking distance of a NJT train line. It was ~$340k with an 203k FHA loan and we wrapped up some construction cost into it.

From what you described it seems like you want to do something similar. Not sure how far along you guys are in the process, but my SO and I have a bunch of hard lessons learned if you ever want to discuss.

Best of luck,

Rick

I am an MEP design engineer in NYC. I've recently purchased my first duplex as a house hack and started my personal real estate investing journey. My undergraduate is in mechanical engineering. I am also in pursuit of my masters degree in mechanical engineering while I work full time as an engineer and house hacking on the side. Trying to figure out deal number 2.

I just wanted to thank everyone here for all the help and knowledge you've given me over the last few months. My wife and I just closed on our first house. It is a duplex in the greater New York metro area that we will be house hacking. It's a bit of a fixer-upper, but we are ready for the task and are excited for the adventure that awaits.

We wouldn't have been able to do this without the forum and the instructional books. This is such a great resource and we are very grateful.

If you have any quick tips on fixer uppers please let me know

Hello All,

After about 18 months of educating myself, planning, budgeting, and saving I am about to buy my first rental property! It is very exciting and scary at the same time.

This house hack is a duplex. I will live in one side of the duplex and rent the other side. However, the rent from the other side will not fully cover all of the payments (this is still a good deal. If both side were rented it would cash flow). I am in the process of making a separate bank account for it and everything, but I'm not sure how I'm going to balance my books because I will have more expenses than income. I will need to put personal funds in to make the payments. How would you set this up?

Thanks in advance!

I am looking into a two family home that has two "bonus apartments", essentially making it a four family home on a two family lot. Each unit has its own separate entrance but the home has a two family CO and is only zoned for two family. I have been seeing a lot of similar postings stating that there is room for an extra unit or a "bonus unit". How would someone take advantage of a theoretical "bonus unit"? How would the extra unit get mail? Could it be sub metered? Any and all advice is appreciated.