I took on a renovation project on a single family home this year and sold it off this summer for 5000 more than what an appraiser told me it was worth.

I bought a house this year, and I bought in cash.

2 Years ago today, instead of renting a studio apartment, I bought this 3/2 single famliy house in Apopka, Florida, rented out the 3 rooms and converted the office into my bedroom.

If you don't have a primary residence yet, I would highly recommend house hacking first.This is a great strategy to use low money down, get into an investment property, have a roof over your head and still keep a large portion of that inheritance. 

I'm looking into potentially house hacking a small multi-family home, preferably in northern NJ (such as Morris county) or Westchester, NY if possible, but I'm open to other areas that are hopefully within about 1.5 hours (driving or public transit) of Manhattan.

The house at that time was probably priced around 1.3 million.

There is a high cost to renovating a non-restaurant space into a kitchen, especially if you need everything like grills, hood vents, walk-in coolers and grease traps in floors, not to mention the utilities to service all of the above.

I just sold one of my OREO in Jackson MS.. 1 year ago as a vacant house needed full rehab I might have gotten 25k from a local for it.. just went into contract last week with a hedge fund for 71k NET to me they pay all costs and back tax's.. so something is in the water. 

I added value to the deal by doing a "live-in" renovation.

@Brianna BuscemiIf I could do it all over again, I wish I would have purchased a 2-4 unit property instead of a town house as my first property.