They can use it as their dorm  and rent out to several roommates, too so that they can live rent free and have their college buddies pay their way while they begin their journey into real estate.  

., I'm also a CA transplant living in Texas and loving it!

Nevertheless, even if this place becomes a less favorable destination for transplants, we do have a population that will need to expand with natural growth and that will sustain real estate prices for a while.

I left a great paying job to move back home to live rent free by purchasing a home out right and start acquiring rental/ buy and hold properties.

Population growth is on a tremendous upswing with a lot of transplants from other states.

Where I live it does not, last year we moved and spent over a year looking for one of these duplex, triplex buildings that we could owner occupy where we could live rent freeish, or at least would be a solid investment once we left.

My name is Brent van de Graaff, and I am a recent transplant to Nashville TN from the Washington DC area.The reason I call myself a quasi-newbie is 2-fold; I have been a marketing and technology professional for ~15 years, 9 of which were in the mortgage industry.

Hi All,I've  been listening to @Brandon Turner and @Joshua Dorkin on the BP podcast a lot lately and I keep getting crazy excited about house-hacking a MFR 3 or 4-plex to live rent free and cashflow on a property.

I will likely be in this town ~5 years and figured this was a good opportunity to get started.I was just wondering if anyone had any experience being a live in landlord as I was thinking about getting a SFR 3-4 bedrooms and renting out 1 or 2 of the other rooms depending on the payments in order to live rent free. 

The big plus is that the "Medical Center" is a very desirable place to live/rent due to the location and amenities.