House hacking has gained in popularity since 2015 according to Google Trends. The idea is as old as time. Someone buys a home and gets someone to live with them to help offset the expenses of the property.
The more modern version of house hacking includes buying duplexes, triplexes, or fourplexes as well as getting roommates or separating upstairs from downstairs in a home. I include the discussion of it here out of completeness, but I really don’t think of this as its own type of real estate investor. Maybe I should, but I really don’t.
Instead, I see them as either owner occupants looking to reduce their cost of buying, or more frequently as Nomads that are getting roommates to be able to help pay for their next purchase by reducing the cost of the property they’re currently living in. I find the idea of house hacking resonates more with younger folks like millennials and young Nomads.
I’d recommend you think of house hackers in those terms as well. When you do run a club, I’d teach a class that discusses house hacking from time to time, but it is not something I’d personally focus on or prioritize.
House hackers will often become Nomads or buy and hold investors. They tend to be interested in how to buy homes with little or no down payment and how to minimize their living expenses or even make buying a home a profit center by collecting enough rent to more than pay for their mortgages, taxes, insurance, and utilities. It is a plan I would recommend for folks interested in it as the numbers look amazing.
