What if your next home came with built-in income? Imagine living in one unit and renting out the others—cutting your housing costs while building long-term wealth. That’s the power of house hacking.

When most people picture buying a home, they think of a single-family house. But there’s another option that can make homeownership more affordable and open the door to faster wealth-building: buying a small multi-unit property.

Programs like FHA, VA, and conventional loans allow qualified buyers to purchase properties with up to four units, as long as they live in one of them. That means you can buy a duplex, triplex, or fourplex, move into one unit, and rent out the others. The rent you collect can offset your monthly mortgage payment, often making your housing costs lower than if you bought a single-family home.

Why House Hacking Is a Game-Changer

This approach offers several financial advantages that go far beyond simple rent collection:

• Lower monthly costs: Rental income helps cover your mortgage, property taxes, and insurance.

• Forced savings: Each mortgage payment you make reduces your loan balance and builds equity.

• Appreciation: As the property’s value rises, your equity grows across the entire building—not just your unit.

• Future investment potential: You can eventually buy another owner-occupied multi-unit property and keep your first one as a full-time rental, growing your portfolio over time.

• Flexibility: You can later tap into your equity to buy a single-family home while keeping your multi-unit property as an income-producing asset.

A Real-World Example

Let’s say you buy a duplex for $450,000 using an FHA loan with 3.5% down.
Your monthly payment (including taxes and insurance) might be around $4,287.
You rent one unit for $2,500 per month.
Your out-of-pocket cost to live in one side drops to about $1,800 per month.

Instead of paying full price for a single-family home, your tenant helps cover the majority of your mortgage while you build equity and benefit from appreciation on the entire property.

In addition, rental units may offer tax advantages, such as deducting maintenance costs and depreciation.

(Example for illustration only; actual costs and rents will vary by property, location, and market conditions.)

What to Keep in Mind

Not every neighborhood offers multi-unit properties, so you may need to widen your search area. And while you don’t need to be a professional landlord, it’s important to feel comfortable managing tenants—or plan to hire a property manager to handle it for you.

House hacking isn’t just a clever strategy; it’s a pathway to financial freedom. By turning your home into both a place to live and an income-producing asset, you can reduce costs today and set yourself up for future investment opportunities.

If you’d like to explore multi-unit properties in our area and see how the numbers could work for you, let’s talk. I can help you understand what’s available, run realistic projections, and create a strategy to make homeownership—and wealth-building—more achievable.