"What if your next home came with built-in income? Discover how living in one unit and renting out the others could slash your housing costs and build your wealth at the same time."
When most people think about buying a home, they picture a single-family house. But there’s another option that could make homeownership more affordable and help you build wealth faster, buying a small multi-unit property.
FHA, VA, and conventional lenders allow qualified buyers to purchase up to a four-unit property if they live in one of the units. That means you could buy a duplex, triplex, or fourplex, move into one unit, and rent out the others. The rental income from your tenants can help offset your monthly mortgage payment, often making your housing cost less than if you bought a single-family home.
This can be a game-changer because of:
- Lower monthly cost: Rental income helps cover your mortgage, taxes, and insurance.
- Forced savings: Part of every payment reduces your loan balance (amortization).
- Rising values: If the property appreciates over time, you build equity on the entire building, not just your unit.
- Future investment potential: You could eventually buy another owner-occupied multi-unit property and keep the first one as a full-time rental. Over time, this can grow into a valuable real estate portfolio.
- Flexibility: Later, you might choose to tap into your equity to purchase a single-family home while keeping your rental properties as income-producing assets.
Not every neighborhood has multi-unit properties for sale, so you may need to broaden your search. And while you don’t have to be a professional landlord to start, you should be comfortable with the idea of managing tenants or hiring a property manager.
If you’re open to living in one unit and renting out the rest, this strategy, often called "house hacking, can be a smart way to make homeownership more affordable and build wealth at the same time.
Example: How Rental Income Can Lower Your Housing Cost
Let’s say you buy a duplex for $450,000 using an FHA loan with 3.5% down.
- Your monthly mortgage payment (including taxes & insurance) might be around $4,287.
- If you can rent one unit for $2,500.
- Your out-of-pocket cost is $1,800 a month to own the property and live in one side.
Instead of paying full price for a single-family home, your tenants help pay the bulk of the bill while you’re building equity and benefiting from appreciation on the entire property. Tax advantages to the rental unit includes deducting maintenance and depreciation.
(Numbers are for illustration only; actual costs and rents will vary by property, location, and market conditions.)
If you’d like to explore multi-unit properties in our area and see how the numbers might work for you, let’s talk! You can also download our Rental Income Properties.