Is there a version of this that offsets rent without roommates?
Trying to buy my first place next year and house hacking is the only version of the math that works, but every example I read is either three roommates in a five bedroom or a duplex where you share a wall and a driveway.
My budget is around 310k with 22k saved. Rent here for a decent one bedroom is 1,475 and I'm paying it now. A 310k purchase at 5 percent down puts me somewhere near 2,300 a month once I add taxes and insurance, which is more than I want to carry alone but survivable for a while.
What I actually want is a separate unit with its own door where I have a tenant and not a housemate. Basement apartments qualify, I think, but the ones I've toured with real separation are all listed 60 to 80k above the ones without, so I'm paying for the income up front. Duplexes here start around 340 and the side-by-side ones with separate yards start closer to 375, which is out of range.
The thing I keep circling is whether I'm being precious about it. If I rented two bedrooms in a four bedroom at 700 each, that's 1,400 a month and my cost drops to 900. That's a genuinely different life financially. It's also a different life in every other way and I've lived with strangers before.
So I don't know if the answer is save another year and buy the duplex, or accept the housemates for 24 months and get out of them, or that 310k just doesn't buy separation in this market and I should be looking somewhere else.