Live in one part of the property, rent the rest, and let the tenants carry most of the mortgage. This calculator shows what house hacking actually does to your monthly housing cost - and what you walk away with when you sell.
Free, no signup needed. Create a free account only if you want to save it, export the PDF, or share it.Most mortgage calculators answer one question: what is the payment? A house hack has a different question underneath it - what does housing actually cost you once a tenant is paying part of it, and how much wealth does that arrangement build while you live there.
This calculator runs both. It takes your purchase price, loan terms, taxes, insurance, and the rent from the units or rooms you are not occupying, then reports your out-of-pocket cost to live there, your cash flow once you move out, and the equity you built along the way - broken into loan paydown, appreciation, and the rent you avoided paying a landlord.
Payment minus the rent your units produce. This is the number that tells you whether you are living cheaper than renting - and by how much per month.
Every month you occupy the property, you are not writing a rent check. That savings is real return and most calculators ignore it entirely.
Loan paydown plus appreciation minus selling costs, with an annualized return percentage so you can compare it to an index fund honestly.
A full hold-period table - cash flow, equity, and cumulative return each year, so you can see when the property flips from cost to income.
Purchase price, down payment, rate, term, plus monthly taxes, insurance, and HOA. If you are using an FHA loan, PMI is handled for you.
Tell it how many units or rooms exist and mark the one you will occupy. Fill in current rent if the property is already leased, or market rent if it is not - either one works.
Your cost to live, your savings versus renting, and the derivation line under each number so you can trace it back to the field that produced it.
The True Equity waterfall shows what actually lands in your pocket at sale, with an annualized return next to the dollars.
I will email your house hack breakdown plus the specific Ankeny-to-Ames neighborhoods where duplexes and rentable single-family layouts still work at today's rates.
A house hack is buying a property you live in while renting out part of it - the other side of a duplex, a finished basement unit, or spare bedrooms. Because you occupy it, you qualify for owner-occupied financing instead of investment-property financing - and owner-occupied programs are built around a far smaller cash outlay. That gap is the single biggest advantage of the strategy. FHA, conventional, VA, USDA, and the Iowa Finance Authority all have owner-occupied paths; your lender will tell you which one fits.
Less than most people assume, because you are buying it as your primary residence rather than as an investment. FHA allows a one-to-four unit property you occupy, conventional has owner-occupied options, VA and USDA can go lower still in the right circumstances, and Iowa Finance Authority programs (FirstHome and Homes for Iowans) can stack down payment assistance on top. I am not a lender or a licensed loan officer, so the figure that applies to you has to come from your lender - but run the calculator above at a few different down payment amounts and you will see how much it moves the rest of the math.
Owner-occupancy requirements on FHA and most conventional loans run one year. After that you can move out, rent the unit you were living in, and repeat the process on the next property.
Often, yes. Lenders will typically count a portion of documented or appraiser-estimated rent from the other units toward your qualifying income, which can raise the price you are approved for. The exact percentage varies by loan product - ask your lender to run it both ways.
Sometimes. The right comparison is not zero - it is what you would otherwise pay in rent. If your out-of-pocket housing cost lands below what you would have paid to rent a comparable place, you are ahead before you even count loan paydown and appreciation. The calculator shows all three so you can judge it honestly.
The unit you occupied becomes rentable, so the property usually flips to positive cash flow. The Year-by-Year tab shows exactly which year that happens based on your inputs.