All Forum Posts by: Steven Mendiola

@Steven Mendiola

Biggest advice for the house-hacker in Denver? Don't overthink it. 

I see too many people wait for a year to buy while they try to learn everything. Don't do anything exotic. Narrow down to some areas you like. Work with a house-hacking agent in Denver that seems to know enough and who's personality you can stand. Start seeing homes and buy in a few months.

The sooner you buy, the sooner you start the clock on lending to allow you to buy again. (You can't move earlier than a year and get another primary residence.)

If you buy a 4br in the $500k range and put 5% down, that's likely $3300/mo or so. You can rent a room for $800-$1000. Rent the three extra bedrooms and get $2400/mo. Save, save, save. Put that in a high-yield savings account, and in a year or two, buy again, rent the previous home and repeat the house-hacking in your new place.

After five years or so, you have maybe three places. Then you can get more creative if you want.

Now, within house-hacking, there are variables to consider. Duplex? Home w/ basement apartment? Straight-up rent-by-the-room? And also, what about buying in an area that allows for non-owner occupied STRs, so you can Airbnb or short-term rent the place when you move out? These are all ideas around the edges, but the big thing is to buy something that allows you to offset your mortgage with rent income and then save that for the next.

Anyway, good luck in your search!

@Steven Mendiola Welcome Steven! House hacking is the most powerful way to get started in real estate investing, and it sets you up for success because you learn so many things: dealing with contractors, how to screen tenants, lease negotiation, but most importantly, your goal should be to reduce or eliminate your housing cost, and there are a lot of ways to do with house hacking depending on your flexibility with strategy: rent by room, Section 8, mid-term rental, STR, etc, and you can combine multiple strategies too.

The big thing is to not shoot for the home run deal on your first one. That's great if you got a home run deal, but the reality for your first one is to try and live for free, and then get better for HH #2, and then incrementally better for HH#3, as you progress in your investing career, you will be able to recognize those great deals, but it is much harder in the beginning since you have a huge learning curve. 

 Hey Steven! I'm in Denver as well, I started my journey by house hacking, and I continue to house hack currently! I'm in the middle of a live and flip so if you want to talk house hacking or construction happy to answer any specific questions.

A few resources that might be useful for you given what you're looking for, I know they've helped me:

The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs by J Scott

The event and meetup forum here on BP for finding IRL events to go and meet other local investors and soon-to-be-investors 

Setting keyword triggers here on BiggerPockets for things like Denver, House Hack, etc so that you don't have to go out and search for the information, the information can find you! Instructions for how to set up keywords on the forums here