All Forum Posts by: Zak Leonard

Hey everyone!

I have identified house hacking as the strategy I want to use to get into real estate investing. I wanted to reach out and see if anyone has had success house hacking in the Richmond, VA area, and if so, what strategy did you use?

I did some some research on Zillow/Realtor, and it doesn't seem like there are a ton of multi-family units available (or within my price range). Therefore, I have been thinking that purchasing a SFH and renting out the other rooms would be my best bet. Additionally, the plan would be to get something I could afford on my own so that I would never have to worry about vacancy. Obviously that would cut into my margins, but it would give me one less thing to worry about. Then after a year or two, move out and have a cash flowing property. I figure I can find this out if I calculate what my income and expenses would be as if I was not living there. 

Lastly, are there any places in the Richmond area that you think would be a good place for house hacking? 

@J Zev J. I appreciate the input, Jason! 

Hello!

I am new to the Real Estate world and still very much in the learning phase of my journey, but I had a question regarding expenses. One thing I noticed that was not generally being accounted for when calculating expenses on a rental property were any CPA and Attorney fees you will need to pay. Do people generally account for those as monthly expenses to help determine cash flow? Say I analyzed a property and determined the monthly cash flow would be $200. However, lets say the monthly average of any CPA/Attorney fees I incur is $250, so in reality by owning that property I would be cash flowing -$50/month. I have no idea how much those fees typically are, so it's very possible that example isn't super realistic. However, since I would not normally incur those fees unless I owned a rental property, I would think they would need to be factored in. Perhaps there is something I am missing or not thinking of, but I had not seen any information about it yet. Thanks in advance for any input!