The secret is deploying an unfair advantage and/or buying good assets + time.

Here’s a summary of the key advantages:1.

There are multiple strategies to take advantage of opportunities during an expansion.  

Hard to produce cash flow or break even with that much debt, at that rate.House-hackers, however enjoy certain one time (non-scalable) advantages that should be taken advantage of in the early days: - They can assume pre-existing debt like VA and FHA Loans (rather than take it on Subject-To which is dramatically riskier).- They can rent by the room and self-manage to produce day 1 cash flow.- Many of these HCOL areas also have strict limitations on AirBnB or short-term rentals... that do not apply to owner-occupants - thus allowing for extreme cashflow potential for house-hackers.

Here are a few suggestions on how you can maximize the wealth of information available: Check out the blogs and podcasts, or take advantage of the search feature (magnifying glass).

.) • Multi-unit would only support a %, so a quad would 25% and prorated over all years of ownership....witteling advantage to not worth the effort. • Single unit properties get pro-rated.

Or are the advantages too significant to pass up?

It allows you to take advantage of a low down payment loan.

Instead I want to take advantage of the opportunity I have of living rent free to invest my time and money in STR's to hopefully build that portfolio up and eventually make that my main source of income (I understand that will take time).

@Tamika Davis One of the biggest advantages of most software on the market is to complete these tasks you mention (maintenance, leases, rent collection, etc).