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This content is provided in partnership with Zhen Liang from Prime Properties TO.
Living for free? House hacking? Upgrade from a condo to a house at no cost!
House Hacking Is A Strategy That Has Become Increasingly Popular
House hacking allows you to move up the Toronto Real Estate ladder much faster. In other words, you can go from a Toronto condo to Toronto detached house a lot quicker if you utilize this strategy. In this blog post, I give you my house hacking tips and tricks, along with the 2 main criteria to look for in a house hacking scenario so that the banks will lend you more money.
“House hacking” is actually just a fancy term that real estate investors have been using for many years. It essentially means that the tenants you have been paying for your housing expenses. This means that if you have housing expenses of $2,000 per month from mortgage, insurance and property taxes, then a tenant will cover those costs for you.
The simplest and fast way to execute this strategy is to have a tenant live in the same house as you. You can do this in many ways, such as:
- Rent out a portion of your house;
- Rent out rooms; or
- Rent out your basement.
Those are just some of the options that exist. Depending on your lifestyle choices, you can 100% live for free by renting out the better part of your house while you live in the smaller part. I personally know a few people who have decided to house hack and live in their own basement for free, while their tenants cover the expenses for their ENTIRE property. It’s a very powerful strategy and you can be as extreme or conservative as you like.
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The most common way of house hacking is by utilizing this strategy to upgrade to a larger house so that you can live upstairs and rent the downstairs. What I typically recommend to most of my house hacking clients is to find a larger house that is suitable for a basement tenant.
Let me give you a very common scenario that’s happening right now. As everyone is looking for more space due to COVID-19, a lot of my clients want to leave their condos. They are trading in their condos for houses. However, to get a house in Toronto, you’re looking at essentially $1,000,000+ right now. So in order to help with the larger house purchase, we find a house that is suitable for a tenant. Let me show you how the numbers work out.
Your monthly expenses on a $1,000,000 house is roughly $3,345 per month. If you get a tenant in the basement, say a 2-bedroom basement apartment, you can get approximately $1,500 per month in rent, which ultimately takes your monthly expenses down from $3,345 per month to $1,845 per month. That’s almost half your mortgage payment per month, covered by your tenant occupying the basement. If you have the money, you can put it back into your house and pay off your mortgage even faster or invest it. On top of that, don’t forget that you’ve just upgraded your real estate asset class from a condo to a bigger house!
To put this into perspective and to show you how powerful this strategy actually is, let me compare your monthly expenses to a 1-bedroom condo unit in downtown Toronto right now. After condo fees on an approximate 500 square foot, 1-bedroom condo in downtown Toronto, you’re looking at almost $2,296 per month in expenses. This is more than the $1,845 per month of monthly expenses on the $1,000,000 house with a basement tenant in our example above, and not to mention you get more space with a house! Such a simple yet powerful strategy.
So, the key to doing this strategy is finding the RIGHT house and having the proper mortgage qualifications for the purchase. Unfortunately, not everyone can execute this strategy, but if you can, I would 100% recommend this strategy as you can move up the property ladder in Toronto much faster. Plus, your monthly expenses go towards paying down your house faster instead of having to shell out cash to pay those dreaded maintenance fees for a condo.
As a bonus, since we execute this strategy for our clients very often, we know certain lenders who will lend you more money than normal if you have an apartment basement in the house. To get this extra money, there are 2 main criteria to look for — a separate entrance and a kitchen. Certain parts of the city will have these types of houses because it doesn’t work on every house.
Discover How To Develop Real Estate With This Step By Step Guide
Always Seek Help From Expert House Hackers
So, if you want to know who the lender is or if you want to house hack and finally upgrade to that bigger house you’ve always wanted, then make sure you reach out to Zhen at Zhen@PrimePropertiesTO.com or 416-436-9436 to get started today
Imagine — buying a BIGGER house and PAYING LESS each month for living expenses. If this all makes sense to you and you’re serious about finding out if you can execute this strategy, do reach out to me. Until next time, your move your future.
If you would like to learn how to finance a house hack today, click the link below to book a free strategy call with us at LendCity today.