Small Multifamily House Hacking with Kyra:
This week we’re traveling to Florida to learn how Kyra went from paying $1,100 to rent an apartment to now generating income while owning her own house!
It all started when Kyra and her husband had a child, so naturally, they decided to start looking for houses to live in. She knew that she did not want her child going to a daycare, so she knew she would need to find a multi-family home so someone in the building could potentially watch her child if needed. Kyra and her husband came across the idea of house hacking, and they realized this would allow Kyra to stay home to watch her child. Soon enough, Kyra found a series of duplexes being sold by the same person and decided it was the perfect property to lockdown. They eventually bought another one of these duplexes to rent it out, which allowed Kyra and her husband to build up a savings account as the child got older. Saving up for a child’s college fund could be hard, but with house hacking, Kyra made it very possible.
Listen to the full story and find out how Kyra and her husband used house hacking to change their financial future for the better:
You Can Listen On:
Books Mentioned in this Episode
Notable Mentions:
BiggerPockets – http://www.biggerpockets.com
Mad Fientist – https://www.madfientist.com/
Best Tips for Tracking and Maximizing Your Travel Reward Points – https://fibyrei.com/best-tips-for-tracking-and-maximizing-your-travel-rewards-points/
Transcript of the show:
Intro (00:15):
Across the world. People have their housing costs taken away as much as half of their income. Have you ever thought of trying to change that? The good news is there is a way house hacking is real and we are here to show you how other people just like you have made it happen. Welcome to the house hacking podcast and here is your host house hacking expert, Andrew Kerr.
Andrew Kerr (00:41):
Well Kyra, thank you for coming on the show. I’m excited to hear about your house hacking journey. I know I’ve been following it a bit in some of the online Facebook groups, so I’m excited to have you on. How are you doing? Where are you calling in from?
Kyra (00:53):
Uh, thanks for having me. I’m, I’m calling in from Southwest Florida. Sunny here 90 degrees even in the winter time. Yeah. So, uh, I’m calling in from my house hacking right now.
Andrew Kerr (01:05):
Awesome. Well I’m over in New Orleans. It has been a miserable summer, hot and humid, but we finally got like this cool spell coming in this past week where we actually dipped down into the 50. So it was sort of nice that to have a relief from that summer heat.
Kyra (01:20):
That sounds like the heater to me.
Andrew Kerr (01:22):
Yeah. Awesome. Well, I think maybe a good place to start would be, can you just give us this high level summary of your house hack, you know, what type of house like you did when you bought it. Uh, just a big overview for everyone that’s listening. So we’ve got a sort of place to start our conversation with.
Kyra (01:39):
Sure. Yeah. Um, so I bought my first house hack a year ago. Me and my husband, we were, um, living in an apartment and for a certain, um, situations, we just had a baby. Um, we decided we wanted to have, uh, raise our child at home and not send her to a daycare. So that kind of put a strain on our income. So we decided to purchase a duplex that was not far from where we were living. Um, so it’s, uh, side-by-side, small multifamily there are a two one each side and it’s in Southwest Florida.
Andrew Kerr (02:21):
I appreciate you giving us that overview. I already have a lot of questions that just came up. I mean, so the first one is you’re renting a place, you know, what were you roughly paying for rent in Florida where you live?
Kyra (02:32):
No. Um, we were paying 1100 for a two, two in an apartment. And actually in my area, the rent prices have just been climbing. I’m sure they’re climbing everywhere, but um, Southwest Florida where we are, um, it’s growing at a rapid pace, so there’s not enough housing for everyone. So the rents and the apartment complexes are just jumping year after year. So we were paying 1100, and that’s when I decided, I was like, we can’t keep putting the money away like this. Um, a mortgage is pretty comparable to that price. Um, but I was really nervous to buy. Um, I never really, my parents they bought, but then they rented for a long time. So it just wasn’t kind of like, uh, in my history to kind of own, and especially with the maintenance and all that kind of stuff. So we were really nervous about purchasing and then we heard about house hacking so that, that kind of just blew our minds away. Like, Oh wow. So I guess owning could like really be, you know, a good idea, good option financially.
Andrew Kerr (03:41):
Okay. So who, who actually heard of house hacking first? Was it you or was it your husband and was there some convincing here of like, Hey, I just heard about this crazy idea and I mean, tell me a little bit about that dynamic.
Kyra (03:53):
Yeah, so, you know, we had a friend that was, you know, house hacking. We didn’t know the term at the time. Um, she was living in a duplex and renting out the other side. Now at the time, me and my husband were traveling and we didn’t really have a, a homestead at that time. So it was interesting, but we never really circled back to the idea. And then I started listening to bigger pockets, uh, bigger pockets, money show, and they interviewed the guy Craig Curelop. And after hearing his podcasts, I went to my husband. I said, look, we have to do this. I don’t even know how the numbers work. I don’t know if it makes sense, but he’s getting money. He’s getting his rent paid by someone else. We could do that.
Andrew Kerr (04:41):
Well, I thought his, his story is crazy. I hadn’t heard the podcast, but I, uh, the BP money episode he’s on, I’ve heard other ones where he was like rented the out the bedroom for Airbnb and made this little like makeshift screen for the living room. And I was like, you know, that’s awesome. You’re really making the money there, but a little extreme. Like what was your husband’s reaction to this? When was he like, all right, I’m right on board. Or like, what’s this crazy idea that you’re coming up with?
Kyra (05:06):
When me and my husband met, we both came to the conclusion that we were both a little crazy. So he, he was going to come up with the ideas and I was going to come up with ideas and we were both going to be the ones to say, let’s do it. So I didn’t really have to twist his arm too much. He, he already knew, you know, it’s something we had to do because it’s crazy.
Andrew Kerr (05:29):
Awesome. Awesome. He was right on board. He’s like, ah, crazy idea. It’s definitely for us.
Kyra (05:33):
Yes. Yeah.
Andrew Kerr (05:35):
Very cool. Alright, so you got the house hacking idea, you heard about it at a friend, you listened to the BP money episode with Craig and you decided, Hey, we’re going to do this. So once you decided you want to do a house hack, how long did it actually take you to actually find the right property?
Kyra (05:52):
Um, so I thought that was going to take a while, but it was, it took about a month. Um, which I think you know, is pretty fast, but I think it’s because in our area we kind of ruled out some locations. Not all multi-families are in the right area that you would want to call home. It would, it would be different if we were looking at it for like, Oh, purely like rental, you know, investment kind of thing. But as a house hacking you, you’re going to live there. So you kind of want it to be in a specific location. You want it to have certain amenities or certain requirements. So it really kind of like narrowed down the list pretty well. And then we kind of stumbled across, um, somebody was selling six of their duplexes in a row.
Andrew Kerr (06:40):
Oh wow.
Kyra (06:42):
Yeah, it was this 83 year old man and his kids didn’t want them, so we kind of like jumped on board. It was in a nice location as far as like all the other duplexes in the area were very nicely well-kept. It was low crime. Um, and it has like a private privacy backyard. It’s like a preserve behind us. So there’s no houses behind us. So when we saw that, we kind of like, you know, you’re not supposed to say I love it. Right? But I was like, yeah, I’m pretty sure I missed all that.
Andrew Kerr (07:17):
All right. So this, this old guy was selling a bunch of his properties. Did he put them on the MLS or was this like an off market deal that you heard about?
Kyra (07:27):
MLS? Yeah, so I met, um, through a friend, I met uh, a realtor and I told him, Hey, you know, in the future I’m looking to buy but not right now. So I just kinda kept his name in my pocket and when the right time came, um, I reached out to him and I was kinda nervous cause I was listening to the bigger pockets then they were like, you should make sure your realtor is this, that and the other thing. And I was like, I don’t know if this is the right person, but the guy was so nice, he actually like went above and beyond and that’s what I needed at the time cause I was working full time. My husband’s working, we had a baby. I was like, I can’t be doing all this myself. I need somebody to really negotiate for me and ask all the right questions. So my realtor really came through on that.
Andrew Kerr (08:14):
Yeah, that’s great. I mean, one thing you mentioned is, you know, you had the full time job, so did your husband and, and then you had a baby. I mean, one of the big excuses I hear folks say is, Oh, we can’t do a house hack because we have kids. So, you know, what was it that made you feel like you could do it or not use that as an excuse and what, what made this feel like the right property for your family?
Kyra (08:39):
Yeah, so actually, you know, after I heard that, um, podcasts from Craig Curelop, I never looked into what the excuses were about not house hacking. All I knew at the time was that, you know, we had a baby, we didn’t our child to go into daycare. We tried to, we wanted to keep her home as long as possible. My job was, it’s a full time corporate job bringing in really good income. My husband is a massage therapist, so he had the flexibility to rearrange his schedule, but it was going to reduce our income. So, um, when we, you know, came on board with the house hacking, we realized we could be really saving a lot of money and bringing in, um, a lot of income from this house hacking opportunity. Um, like there, there was no, that was really like the plus side. I never thought about it like, Oh, should I have my child? Uh, I don’t know. Living next door to somebody, I don’t know. I was already renting an apartment, so I had people on top of me to the left of me, to the right of me. People that I didn’t know, I had no control over. At least now in my house hack, I, I tell, you know, I can say who lives next to me.
Andrew Kerr (09:54):
Yeah. You got more control over this situation. And you know, in the online forum that we’re a part of together, I’ve seen some of the pictures of your backyard. It looks awesome. I mean like.
Kyra (10:03):
yeah.
Andrew Kerr (10:04):
to me that’s like a great place to live, uh, to, to raise a kid. They keep go out and they can play in the yard. And if you’re in an apartment, you can’t control who’s next to you. You know, you might have a little park or a little playground space, but you just don’t have as much control. And I like the fact that you’re like, you know, you didn’t come across the excuses and you just thought this is going to be good for us financially in the longterm in, you didn’t come up with any excuses. So that’s awesome. So you know, my next question is, you found the property, were there any others offer offers on the property with someone trying to buy the whole portfolio? Or was it, you know, how competitive was that whole process? Because you know, you just bought in 2018 it was very different than a lot of folks that were buying, you know, four or five, six years ago when the market wasn’t as strong and as hot.
Kyra (10:49):
Yeah. So, um, when we, when we went in to come and look at the place, our realtor said, yeah, there’s somebody else who’s interested. So you need to put in an offer. And that kind of, I knew that was going to happen because in the single family places around here, I’m telling you it’s growing leaps and bounds. Yeah. So the market here is really competitive, um, just even for like single family because so many people are moving here. So I knew if like that was going to happen, somebody was going to put in an offer, um, a counter offer this and that or whatever. So what it ended up being was to the left and to the right of me, somebody put in an offer to the duplex, to the left, and then their family member put in an offer to the duplex to the right. And they wanted to look at the one that we ended up buying. So, so over the weekend I was like, Oh my gosh, we have to, you know, we can’t let this slip away. I don’t know if the numbers, you know, if it’s the right number, but like regardless somebody is to be paying the, the part of the rent, you know, part of the mortgage. So it’s, you know, let’s just do it. Let’s just take the risk.
Andrew Kerr (12:01):
And did you come in at the asking price or did you have to come in a little bit over say, you know, let’s go a little over. So we have a strong offer.
Kyra (12:08):
Um, so the, the owner actually put in, uh, asked us if we wanted him to put a new roof on the duplex, then he would put a, he would raise the price 5,000.
Andrew Kerr (12:22):
That’s a pretty good, yeah.
Kyra (12:24):
So he’s like, okay, I’ll put a new roof in, but I want to attack on 5,000 to the deal. And I kind of thought about it and that’s when I started crunching numbers and I was like, wait a minute, that that new roof rolls into the mortgage price. Granted, we wouldn’t have to deal with finding a new a roofer and this and that, but we would be paying for that roof on interest for the next 30 years, for example. So that roof really costs more than if we were to go and purchase it. So instead we talked the price down. Uh, we, we, so it was listed at like 225 when we talked him down to two 13 for the two one on both sides.
Andrew Kerr (13:06):
Awesome. I mean, so, all right, so you ended up getting into that a little below the asking price and you got the discount because it needed the roof. Did it need any other work or, I mean, what was the other general condition of the property?
Kyra (13:17):
Uh, everything was in pretty good shape. Um, there wasn’t any like really it didn’t need any rehab. It definitely needed like a little face lift, but we didn’t do anything. Honestly. There was a, so there was, it was tenant occupied both sides. So we actually had to ask one side to leave cause we, we had to move in so that, that was kind of difficult. That was a little challenging and kind of the first thing to face like, Hey, you’re the landlord now you’ve got to start making these, you know, these calls. So, um, the other side was tenant occupied and we decided that we actually wanted to inherit them within, they were a month to month, but we’re like, Hey, you know, they’ve been there for two years, let’s, let’s give them another, you know, let’s give them another year cause we’re new to this. So when we did that, um, they did say like, Hey, there’s a few things that the previous landlord didn’t fix, can you please fix it? And it was like, there was some broken tile. So like three pieces. My husband was able to fix that and I think it was like a faucet. Yeah, the faucet was leaking.
Andrew Kerr (14:21):
So other than the roof, just sort of real minor stuff. And you had the tenant right away so that, that was awesome. So when you bought it, what’s your mortgage payment and taxes and insurance all end up costing you per month?
Kyra (14:35):
1200.
Andrew Kerr (14:36):
Okay. So you went from running a place at 1100 to owning a place for 1200. So I mean already that’s sort of like good common sense. Whereas, you know, some folks buy a place and their place costs twice as much as they’re renting. But here you are owning a place and it’s not much more than your rent. And that also has principal being paid down. But now you’ve got the tenant you inherited. What, what were they at further a monthly rent payment when you inherited them.
Kyra (15:04):
So, um, they are actually paying for below market rent. And I was joking around, I was like, I would have moved in as a tenant for that price if I had no one that was available. Um, so they’re paying 775 which was really, it’s, it was really a way below. So we raised it to 850 to this compromise cause we don’t want them to leave, but 850 was still below market, but it’s been a year. So now the rent just went up last month. So now they’re at 900. We raised it 50 bucks and they’re going to stay for another year, but then they’re going to move on. But at that time we’re going to flip it to Airbnb and make an additional 200. So that’s a future.
Andrew Kerr (15:48):
Yeah. Planning way ahead. All right, so you’re literally increased the rent on them on day one you moved in and you said, Hey, you’re well below market or the new owner, you got to come up some. And they were fine with that $75 increase
Kyra (16:01):
they were. And actually when we went to buy the realtor, the um selling realtor, they told us which side would probably be able to accept a higher increase on rent. So that’s how we kinda chose who needed to leave. So
Andrew Kerr (16:16):
well that was really smart. I mean, even then, you know, you’re, you’re 1200 a month mortgage, you’re bringing in 850 you still have some maintenance and stuff you have to pay out of pocket. But I mean, you’re already cut your housing costs more than in half just from getting into that duplex.
Kyra (16:31):
Yeah. And you know, so it’s been a whole year. We, we were, we still had to cover 350 a month just on the mortgage compared to the 1100 and now that it’s been a whole year, the amount of maintenance that we put into that place ended up being $350 for the whole year.
Andrew Kerr (16:49):
Oh wow. Yeah. So I mean, you more than cut your housing costs in half. I mean like, yeah, that, that’s really awesome. All right, so I’ve got a question about how you’ve been managing your tenants. You obviously moved in and you increase their rent on them. Did you put a lease in place or are you sort of just doing it by a handshake? I mean, how did you structure that side of things?
Kyra (17:10):
Oh yeah, we did put a lease in place. Um, so me and my husband have been renting for the past 10 years, so I had all these leasing documents, so I was like, okay, I’ll just kind of mash them all together, create a lease. Um, and I ended up, I had them sign it. Yeah.
Andrew Kerr (17:27):
Okay. Awesome. Yeah, really smart to hear that you actually used a lease. And then what have you been doing for rent collection? Have you been having folks just bring a check by? Are you doing some sort of digital payment or using any sort of landlord or property management software?
Kyra (17:42):
You know? Um, we’re right next door and they knew that we bought it. So I know some people like to let their land, let their tenants know who the owner is if they’re living next door. But um, my husband’s like, you know, you’re not going to get anything over on him. Like he, I made him the landlord, so yeah. So you know, they walk the, they walk the check over. So we’re, we’re just doing a, you know, just, you know, easy.
Andrew Kerr (18:16):
Awesome. Well, I mean it sounds like your first year has gone pretty smoothly, then you’re able to do a rent increase right away. You just did another rent increase. They’ve been paying on time and fairly well bringing the money right over, you know, minimal maintenance costs. I mean, obviously it seems like it’s working out really, really well for, for you. I mean, how is it living in a duplex now with, with a child? Is it really any different or better than what you’re doing at the apartment?
Kyra (18:43):
Yeah, it’s so much better than the apartment. Um, when we decided that, you know, let’s do this house hack, one of the things that I decided was, you know, I have, I had the goal of being financial independent and I kind of had the idea of, okay, we’ll get our dream house, you know, in the future, it’s better to rent right now, blah, blah, the numbers, that’s what people say. But I was like, I can’t, like, I can’t keep living in this apartment complex. Uh, you know, it just was not the place that not only did I not want to raise my child with in the area that we were just so many people coming and going, you don’t know who they are and this and that. So I was like, we really got to figure out a way to kind of live our FI life today. And that’s how we decided on the duplex. And we wanted to have a yard. We wanted to be able to grow fruit, um, have the space for my daughter to run around. So like the house hack, like it is in alignment with our FI goal as far as like saving, but it’s also an alignment with how we wanted to live our life. So it was like we got pull a trigger and jump on it.
Andrew Kerr (19:51):
Yeah. That seems like it was a really great fit for the lifestyle that you wanted and also be able to help get you to your financial goal. So I mean, if you’re sort of thinking back through your house hacking experience, what do you feel like your biggest success was or your biggest win was over the past year?
Kyra (20:08):
Uh, making the decision to do it.
Andrew Kerr (20:11):
Awesome. And then, I mean, over that same period, what was sort of your biggest challenge or is there anything if you could go back and change it or do differently? Is there anything that you would,
Kyra (20:20):
so I have, I have a daughter, she’s two years old, so she takes up a lot of our time. Right? That’s what children do for parents. Um, so, but I have like the, the um, my, my side passion is definitely like everything you gotta do it yourself. DIY. I love learning and getting my hands dirty and getting into it, but it takes a lot of time learning to do it yourself. So in retrospect I feel like I should have delegated and kind of contracted out some, some things so that it wouldn’t take away so much of my time. But also, um, it actually, it was costing me too, like for example, like to paint something, um, I’m doing it on the weekends and at night cause I’m working during the day or my husband, he’s, he’s with our daughter during the day. He can’t do it. So it’s was like if we actually, you know, hired somebody to paint, then it would get done so much faster and we wouldn’t be losing money in this way or that way. So you think DIY might save you money, but if it’s not going to save you money on the time sense of it, then you got to hire it out.
Andrew Kerr (21:27):
Yeah, I think that’s a really great point that you make. A lot of times we look at trying to do a real estate project ourselves to save money, but it takes so much time to get it done where if you hire the pro they come and get it done in like a quarter of the time and then that time you’re giving up his time, you’re taken away from your family and your friends and the stuff that’s really important to you. So I guess my next question is, would you actually do a house hack again or would you buy more real estate?
Kyra (21:56):
So two parts to that one. I would definitely love to do another house hack, but I ended up buying another real estate property sooner than I could house hack.
Andrew Kerr (22:07):
Oh really? Okay. All right. You’ve got to tell me the story then.
Kyra (22:11):
Um, so you got to live in a house hack for, you know, at least one year owner occupied. Right. Well, I told you the previous owner had six of these duplexes in a row and he was selling them off. And of course the, you know, you heard how good my experience was six months into our house hack. I’m like, we got to buy the other one. I was like, wait, like I’m listening to bigger pockets and I don’t know anything about real estate, but they keep saying, you know, the numbers are right and this duplex is right next door. And I’m like, we got to buy it. We’ve got to buy it because it’s here, it’s next door. So yeah, my husband was like, he’s like, I can’t handle you anymore.
Andrew Kerr (22:52):
So it was a little too crazy for your husband.
Kyra (22:55):
Yeah, that was that where he was like, okay, this is a little too much, but you’re right. You know, when it’s, when it’s the right thing, it’s a good thing no matter what. He’s like, we got to do it. So yeah, just six months after buying this one, I ended up buying an investment property that the duplex, which is, it’s one door down. But yeah,
Andrew Kerr (23:18):
that’s super convenient to have it right there. So is it the same makeup, like a two bedroom, one bathroom on each side?
Kyra (23:24):
Yeah, it’s the same exact layout. It’s the same model. It’s like the same year. It was the same previous owner. So that’s what we felt good about is like we already know how to fix things in this place. It’s going to be the same way to fix it over there. Um, plus we wanted to, you know, if we wanted to manage something, it was nearby. So that going to be easy.
Andrew Kerr (23:46):
Yeah. Really easy way to dip your toe in from being a house hack here to actually being now a serious landlord and owning multiple properties. Yeah. All right, so I got it. I got to ask like, what are you doing for rent? Did you inherit both tenants? Did you keep kick out tenants, longterm tenants? What, what are you doing with this other duplex? Did you take a different approach?
Kyra (24:07):
Yeah, so, um, well we, it came with it. The tenants on both sides, they were monthly, monthly. So the one side we gave them a renewal with the increase. Again, they were on the same terms, the 775, so we bumped it up to the 850. Um, and then the other side, we, we wanted them to leave. Uh, they’d been living there for like 14 years, so I felt really bad. Yeah. But the, the house condition was not kept well at all. And I was like, I, I, I wouldn’t have proved her to, you know, this tenant, I wouldn’t have approved them to live there. So, you know, if it doesn’t sit right then don’t let it keep going. So, um, we, we asked her, you know, we told her we weren’t going to renew any longer. Um, so then we flip that side to an Airbnb.
Andrew Kerr (24:58):
Ah, what’s, why did you decide on an Airbnb versus two longterm tenants?
Kyra (25:03):
Yeah. So, um, I have a friend, well, so I’m in Southwest Florida and it’s, it’s a, it’s a high vacational location. And I have a friend, the one, uh, that I knew that was kind of doing the duplex rental thing, she, she flipped one of hers into an Airbnb and she had been just raving about it for months. So I was like, okay, well she’s, she’s doing pretty well with it. Let’s take the gamble. So it’s been doing really well. There’s people there now.
Andrew Kerr (25:32):
Oh, very cool. So
Kyra (25:33):
Yeah.
Andrew Kerr (25:35):
How much did you roughly spend to actually furnish the place? Cause I mean, if it’s a two bedroom, one bathroom, I mean that’s one of the things folks, they always ask me about it. It’s like, well, do I have to spend all this money to furnish it or how nice to actually need to make it for Airbnb or VRVO what was your sort of thought process on how you’re going to decorate it in the furniture you’re going to put into it?
Kyra (25:55):
Well that’s, that’s a little interesting. Uh, one thing I’ll say is that the theme is minimalist. So you know, you got the one one, a cute side table with a plant in the room and that’s it. Right? So I think that really helped. We called it like the minimalist sunny house. Um, but the second part is I had a friend who had an annual rental, but she was out of the country. She wasn’t able to, um, she had it furnished and she wasn’t getting tenants. So she decided to take the furniture out and just rented unfurnished and, and she had success with that, but so she sold me her furniture at a deal.
Andrew Kerr (26:35):
Oh yeah.
Kyra (26:36):
And yeah. And then anything left that I had to furnish, I just went to Facebook market.
Andrew Kerr (26:43):
Yeah. Talk about a frugal wind by buying the furniture that your friend didn’t need anymore and then just fix it in the last couple of pieces.
Kyra (26:44):
Yeah. This is where it gets even more interesting cause I sold her that furniture a few years ago, a few years prior, so I kind of received that, my furniture back. So that was, that was bizarre.
Andrew Kerr (27:03):
Yeah, definitely an interesting sort of roundabout story of how it all came back to you. So, you know, I know some folks have actually done similar things with their house hack. They’ll have like a basement apartment or a mother-in-law suite and instead of putting in a longterm tenant, they’re thinking about doing Airbnb. So why’d you decide on Airbnb versus HomeAway or VRVO and you know, how would you sort of decide on the price to, to list it for each night?
Kyra (27:31):
Um, we had experience with just being, um, guest as Airbnb and we kind of liked that platform. I know there’s other ones, but I was like, Hey, let’s just try this one out. If it, if we don’t get enough traction, we’ll add in the other ones, but it’s, it’s been, um, constantly booked. So we don’t really have space to list to anywhere else. And what we, uh, as far as like pricing, we kind of engaged in the area to see what other places are being priced at. So we put that as our baseline in conjunction with what do we need to make in order to at least, you know, make our numbers right. So we kinda did both of those and Airbnb has that like smart pricing. So we kinda like, that’s our like default as well.
Andrew Kerr (28:18):
Okay. Awesome. So are you making enough profit on this other investment to now cover the rest of your costs on the first home?
Kyra (28:27):
Yeah. Yeah, man. So that’s where it was like, okay, so a year ago is paying 1100 and so I buy the house hack and now I’m like, okay, well we have to cover 350 then six months in I get crazy and I buy this other real estate investments duplex and now not only did we finally come to baseline of zero not owning anything on two mortgages, but now we’re starting to make profit.
Andrew Kerr (28:57):
Really, really cool. Like, and literally in a year. I know sometimes it takes people quite awhile to like find a property that works, fix it up, do the house hack and start to make a little money. I’m like literally in a course of a year, you went from high cost of living as far as $1,100 a month to now actually profiting money every month. I mean talk about a really awesome experience and helping you get on your sort of FI path of, you know, getting to financial independence.
Kyra (29:26):
Yeah. We’re, we’re really like, we couldn’t believe it. And so the Airbnb is actually pulling in about 1200 a month versus our, you know, the other half, which is at 850. So everything’s kind of like a test. It was like, okay, let’s test being landlords. Let’s test being Airbnb. Um, so we didn’t kind of like go out the door and just like, let’s just, you know, max profit, whatever, you know. So now that we’ve tested an Airbnb is doing pretty well, we’re gonna look at flipping the other ones.
Andrew Kerr (30:01):
Awesome. So when they’re the folks on the other side of the building, you’re in, when their lease is up, you’ll make that Airbnb as well.
Kyra (30:08):
Yeah.
Andrew Kerr (30:09):
Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Really cool. Well, thank you so much for being on and sharing your story. I mean, I think it’s this perfect case study of how to do a house hack and how to do it in a short period of time. Um, I mean, literally, it’s, it’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing it. But before we let you go, we like to ask all of our guests a set of final six questions. Are you ready for it?
Kyra (30:37):
Sure.
Andrew Kerr (30:38):
Awesome. All right. So number one, what is your favorite personal finance blog book or podcast?
Kyra (30:44):
I’m going to say mad fientist. Um, yeah, so when I started reading his blog, like I knew about personal finance, but then when I read his blog I just kinda like, it just catapulted me into like the whole FIRE and financial independence and I started putting in like all his methods and I was like, wow, my taxes are cheaper. I’m doing this, I’m doing that. So that kinda like, um, really got me jumped, jumped, started on the whole FIRE thing.
Andrew Kerr (31:13):
Awesome. And I’ll put the link to his website in the show notes for folks that have never heard of it before. All right, so number two, what’s your favorite real estate related blog book or podcast?
Kyra (31:23):
So I’ve got to say bigger pockets and I haven’t read anything else. I mean I’ve only been in real estate for a year and they’ve gotten me this far, so I’m pretty glad about that.
Andrew Kerr (31:36):
They have probably one of the longest running podcasts out there and especially in the real estate space. Yeah, I’ve been listening to the BP podcast for years now. All right, so number three, what is your favorite travel destination you’ve been to so far?
Kyra (31:51):
Me and my husband actually took an extended honeymoon for a whole year, traveling Europe and Asia six months after you found out about financial independence. So we were kind of like, Oh my God, should we do this? We’re supposed to save our money. But that’s why I had to sell my furniture.
Andrew Kerr (32:07):
Ah.
Kyra (32:09):
yeah. So, um, yeah, so we traveled a lot and I probably would say like, uh, Italy’s coast, like the Amalfi coast and all that. It’s just, it’s like a storybook. So beautiful.
Andrew Kerr (32:21):
Yeah. Italy is my favorite country. I’ve been four times in a, in June, 2020, I’ll be going back for a fifth time. So yeah, I always love it when someone says they love it and I’m like, Oh, okay,
Kyra (32:33):
yeah, I want my house, you know, I want to like do all the little, you know, Italian touches.
Andrew Kerr (32:39):
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, the last time I was there actually a friend that I met when I was doing aid work in Indonesia and became close with in Haiti. We got to go to her wedding. She was from Southern Italy and Oh my goodness, the Italian weddings. It’s so much wine and so much good food. Yeah. It just made me love the country even more.
Kyra (32:40):
Awesome.
Andrew Kerr (32:58):
All right, so, uh, next question is, what’s next on your travel or vacation list?
Kyra (33:04):
Um, yeah, so I really wanna like travel hack to Hawaii also. I, I gotta I know there’s a lot of info out there. I just got to figure it out. I’m pretty far away.
Andrew Kerr (33:15):
Well, you know, one of the great things is I think as you do real estate investing, it pairs so well with travel hacking and the credit card rewards is so like when your tenant moves out and you got to go buy some furniture to furnish the one side for Airbnb, put that all on a credit card and get the signup bonus and now you’ve got the reward points to pay for the flight. So, yeah, my, my wife and I, we travel every year and we like to fly business class and we do it all on points and we earn the points from our real estate investing and spending. So I think it’s a great combination and yeah, you should definitely use it to get to Hawaii.
Kyra (33:48):
that’s, that’s why I didn’t have them put the roof on. I bought my new, I bought a new roof on the credit card.
Andrew Kerr (33:54):
Ah, smart. Smart. Okay. All right. And then, uh, number five, what is your biggest bucket list item that you haven’t accomplished yet?
Kyra (34:03):
Um, quitting my job. Quitting the 9 to 5 rat race.
Andrew Kerr (34:08):
Alright. Alright. Do you have a trajectory on this yet? Is this like one year out? Five years out, 10 years out.
Kyra (34:14):
Four and a half.
Andrew Kerr (34:16):
Okay. And I was gonna say, cause you mentioned mad fientist, this website, I, I’m sure you’ve played with all the calculators on there. That’s why I sort of asked a bit.
Kyra (34:23):
Oh yeah.
Andrew Kerr (34:25):
Awesome. All right. And then number six, what is your favorite life hack?
Kyra (34:29):
Okay, here’s a curve ball. I’m going to say following a plant based vegan diet. Yeah, without your health, you know all this stuff is just like a wash really.
Andrew Kerr (34:42):
Well, it’s funny you mentioned that. So like I actually started switching to where I’m about 80% plant based. I still eat a lot of fish and then a lot of like the free range, super healthy chicken and then I’ll do like red meat once a month. But I’ve noticed a huge difference. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give up like a good burger and a good steak, but I’ve noticed a huge difference just doing like 80% plant based.
Kyra (35:05):
Well did you try the impossible Whopper?
Andrew Kerr (35:08):
I haven’t yet. I’ve been, I’ve been, I need to go and try it. Is it pretty good?
Kyra (35:14):
That was my, I was like, wow, this is a childhood now. It’s not like eating vegetables, but you know, that’ll give you your nostalgia.
Andrew Kerr (35:21):
Okay, awesome. All right. I’ll have to go give it a try here or tomorrow then for lunch. Awesome. Well Kyra, thank you again so much for being on the show and sharing your story. I really appreciate it.
Kyra (35:33):
Cool. Yeah. Thanks for letting me share. You know, if I can get anyone to interested, it really is, you know, house hacking is, I really don’t see how you can go wrong with it.
Andrew Kerr (35:45):
Yeah, I know it’s made a huge difference in our life as well. Uh, we’re living in our third house hack right now and we’re working on our, uh, we just closed on our fourth one where we’re doing some renovations first before we move in. But yeah, it really is a life changing experience, especially on the financial side.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Thank you for listening to the house hacking podcast. For more up to date information on house hacking to access links and resources mentioned in today’s show, and connect with the guest and host head over to www.fibyrei.com that’s www.fibyrei.com where your house hacking journey begins.
More Small Multifamily House Hacking Episodes:
Small Multifamily House Hacking with Brooke: https://fibyrei.com/small-multi-family-house-hacking-with-brooke/
Small Multifamily House Hacking with Logan Allec: https://fibyrei.com/small-multi-family-house-hacking-with-logan-allec/
Be sure to check out our Ultimate Guide to House Hacking for a great overview of the different styles of house hacking and different types of tenant bases.
Check out the home page for “The House Hacking Podcast” here.
