I house hacked & lived in upstairs unit for 1 year (collecting $600/month from a friend/roommate) and $1200/month initially from downstairs tenant (up from $950).

In my opinion it's a big step going into large MF but am super excited.As @David Lilley said go for a house hack - get the experience, have room mates (get paid) manage the property.

@Antonio Cucciniello if you can stand to live with roommates I think you’re best off finding an undervalued SFH that just needs some paint and flooring and renting out bedrooms.

Did she have roommates, did your contractor maybe go ahead and rekey, or she is simply lying to get more time to get her belongings out??!!!

It's too small to make it into a duplex.I know that there are small families and couples that might want an arrangement like this, but I'm wondering about other peoples' experiences with pairing together roommates who don't know each other.

I know a lot of people have experience househacking, specifically rooms for a SFR, and a lot of people are thinking about househacking, including myself.In my case, I am planning on renting out ~3 rooms and may have 3-4 roommates (I am thinking about renting out the master for a much higher amount, so it could be rented to a couple).For the people that have had success in finding roommates.

I've thought about bringing in roommates, but that is not my cup of tea.

Even if roommates are paying you separately, this is not a terrible amount of data entry.

Recently, my brother is very interested in buying a house in California and living in it for a few years with roommates.

And honestly that's what makes REI so attractive, taking a simple concept like house hacking, and turning it into a creative investment.Consider living with roommates(as many as you can), in order to lower your cost of living, and therefore increasing your potential to stack some cash.