I took no money from the cash flow (when there was any) and I never made a late payment to the bank.This fall, nearly 12 years after the bank gave me that house, and over 15 years after I knocked on that door - after evictions, vacancies, insurance claims, and never taking a dime out of it - I sold that house and placed all of the proceeds in a 1031 exchange.

@Madison SloanTo start house hacking, focus on saving for your down payment, researching target markets like Salt Lake City or North Idaho, and building a strong team of professionals, including an agent and lender.

It’s a great way to grow faster.HELOC or Equity Tapping: If you have equity in another property, using a HELOC or cash-out refinance could help cover the down payment without affecting your DTI as much.Seller Financing or Creative Deals: Look for sellers willing to finance directly, which bypasses traditional mortgage qualification hurdles.Scaling quickly often involves combining strategies—play around with what works best for your goals.

The Heloc can also pose as a debt obstacle since its an open end mortgage a.k.a credit card.a mortgage is also set up over 30 years so it offers a lower rate and payment. 

You can sometimes purchase a property with zero down or a minimal down payment but a seller financing deal will not hold a note for 30 years as a bank would.

Good luck with getting this tenant to accept higher rent, because you've trained your tenant to think they have a "mortgage payment" that never goes up!

One thing I am curious of - typically many of the hard money lenders will charge a 1-3 year pre-payment penalty in these types of scenarios unless your client paid points to not have that pre-payment penalty.

Long Term Rental.Please feel free to reach out in my dms - I'll need property address along with your debt / equity/ monthly payment information!

How long have you owned these, and how much is rent vs the payment?

I would like to purchase another property so I looked into a heloc and a cash out refinance and it looks like I would qualify for about 75000 max which would be enough to put a down payment on another property and rehab it, but I still haven’t paid myself back from the original property rehab.