Hi all,
First time poster, long time follower here. My husband and I have been looking at 2 family homes in Hudson County, NJ for the past 8 months (while also trying to expand our OOS investments in Greensboro, NC) We're trying to find a good house hack deal so we could take advantage of the FHA loan. We have a 2 year old so the idea would be that we'd live in this place for 2-3 years max, rent the other unit in the meantime and then rent both once we have to move to a better school district. As you can imagine, in this current market it's been extremely difficult finding any decent deals and we finally have one that may have some potential but we still aren't sure the numbers make sense. Its a 2 family in a good location for $650K and requires approximately $75K worth of rehab. PITI comes to a little over $5200 and the rental estimates for both units together (taking into account when we eventually move out and rent both) also comes close to $5200. However, this is not taking into account any other expenses or vacancy costs meaning that in a calculated sense, we will not break even. Furthermore, since we don't plan to live in this place long term, any chance of enjoying the benefits of refinancing when rates drop eventually are also a gamble. This is the closest we have come to rents at least breaking even with PITI but by most other metrics, it isn't cutting it. Is it not fair to expect cashflow or even be cashflow neutral in the current interest rate market and in this particular housing market? We don't want to be too risk averse but also don't want to jump into a bad deal. Would appreciate any advice and thoughts folks have!
