Real Estate the Ramsey Way - I'm House-Hacking And Its Miserable!

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

House hacking can be a great way to save money, but what happens when you hate where you live? This call explores how to balance your financial goals with your quality of life and when it might be time to make a change. Next steps: ·   🏠Not sure what to do next when buying or selling your home? Check out our ⁠⁠Real Estate Home Base⁠⁠ for free tools and resources to guide your next steps. ·   🏠And if you’re ready to buy or sell your home, ⁠⁠connect with a RamseyTrusted® real estate agent⁠⁠. They’re experts who’ll help you confidently navigate homeownership the way we teach. Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

I currently am house hacking. I'm trying to move. I don't think my current living situation because I'm in a low-income area. I feel like my two options right now is one move out to an apartment and rent, but I would rent out my current unit or two, which I was leaning towards is just buying another property and a better area, but continuing to house hack. So, Thomas, I'm an old, old man. What is house hacking? John hasn't been on TikTok ever.

I would not know how to log into TikTok. Yeah. What is house hacking? It's a mostly unit. So I live in one unit and I rent out my other two units and I get rent for the mortgage. Is that what the kids call it these days, house hacking? Yes. All right.

All right. That sounds miserable. It is pretty miserable. I actually hate it. So let me ask you this. So I was in early advice. adopter back in 2009, 10 into this thing called biohacking. And I used to, there was no continuous glucose monitor.

So I'd prick my finger every morning. And I was always peeing on ketone strips. And I was keeping like these detailed Excel spreadsheets. And then one day I was like, I'm biohacking myself into a life that I hate living. Yeah. Right? And so then I quit biohacking. You know what I mean?

But so, yeah, I don't know. George, George knows more about this TikTokization. What caused you to get into this house hacking situation? I'm assuming you're a guy in your 20s. How old are you? 25. Okay. What caused me to get into it?

I mean, I just want to become financially stable when a diverse. But like, did someone tell you about this? Did you see a video and it sounded alluring and you started alluring and you started looking for multifamily homes? I think I was on YouTube a few years back. Yeah, I didn't like how expensive rent was. And, you know, I've always heard that it's better to buy them to rent. So, treating how I can buy. Okay.

What I want you to understand is that a lot of times the things that seem really cool on the Internet are often going to destroy your life. Now, you're not quite there yet, but you're getting a little bit of that taste in your mouth of the reality of this was not what was sold to me when I bought the course or whatever. And so I want you to realize that it's okay to opt out and go, you know what, I'm going to go rent for a while and just sort of reset. I can sell this multifamily because I don't really want to be a landlord by default just because I thought house hacking was going to be the move.

And both George and I have both rented, both married. I've rented, both my kids have lived in rented homes at certain times, and we kept plugging away, and our life is changed now. You get what I'm saying? Like the fact that you're thinking about future you and you're trying these things tells me you've got what it takes to become financially secure. You're not scared of doing hard stuff. You're not scared of putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. You're not scared of like doing the next right hard thing. So man, all you need is a clear path. It's actually

going to get you where you want to go and not get a bunch of clicks on some social media site, right? Yeah. So what are you making right now? What's your income and what is the income you're actually netting from this multifamily, if any? My income, like, gross is 300. What do you do? Software engineer. Amazing. 300,000?

Yeah. You know who doesn't need to house hack guys who make $300,000? Thomas, you won, dude. You can pay your own mortgage like a grown adult. You don't need people doing it for you that live next door that also knock on your door when their toilet breaks. That throw parties. I'm trying to, like, you know, put myself in the best position.

Thomas, you're in it. Do you have any debt right now? No, like 4,000 student loans. Okay. You can pay that off today? You have that money in savings? Yeah, I can. Today.

How much will you have left in savings after that? A good amount, like, 90-10. Amazing. So think about this. Today, you will be consumer debt-free with $90,000 in the bank. What is owed on the mortgage on this multifamily? I just bought it, like 18 months ago. I almost about all of it left, like $6.50.

$6.50 is what is owed, and it's about worth $6.50? I bought it at like $6.90 right now. If I have to guess, $27.50. Okay. So you could probably walk away after fees with a little bit of pocket change, if you sold it. Maybe. Maybe.

Okay. Because right now they're just paying the mortgage. Like basically you're staying there with rent-free? Yeah. What's the cash flow like? Because you have a big old mortgage on that. Yeah. I mean, I'm like negative 100 after rent is collected.

So you owe 100? Like after I get more my rent, I have to put like $100. Of your own money? Okay. So you basically have a very low rent right now. But you have to pay the money. do work as a landlord and deal with all the risk and liability and all that fun stuff. Yeah.

And somebody else regularly flushing your toilets. Yeah. Right. So what is your actual dream? If I could erase this whole house hacking thing, we restarted today, what does Thomas really want? Do you want to live in a single family home in a decent neighborhood and start a family? What's on the other end of this? Yeah.

A nice single family home and a nice neighborhood. So buy that. Set yourself up for the life. you actually want. What was growing up, like, what was money like growing up for you? Money wasn't, that wasn't,

I wasn't funny, but yeah, money wasn't there. It wasn't, I wasn't broke, you know, money wasn't. Was it a source of tension?

Yeah. I mean, we didn't, my mother did a good job, so we didn't feel it as children. No, no, I'm not saying this as a character, in anything, any shade on anybody.

I'm just trying to get to a, like, because where George and I are sitting, you're 25 years old, you make 300 grand. Yeah. When you're 27, you'll have banked $900,000 after taxes. You get what I'm saying? Like, bro, you're doing really, really well. Yeah. Now you're in the uncomfortable adult seat of slow and steady. So imagine you go rent for a year, even if it costs.

cost you, I don't know, two or three grand. I don't know what it's going to cost in your area for a place that you like. And you just live fairly frugly. Live on a lesson you make. Should be easy on 300 grand with no debt. You bank 150 grand on top of your 90. Now you've got some serious money. You got 240,000 to put down on a house that you actually want. You're saying I should like just buy the nice single family home in my neighborhood. Buy the home that you want because you don't need somebody to pay your mortgage. That's not the issue. Yeah.

If you buy the house you want and you start building the life you want and a few years from now you want to get into real estate, that's awesome, man. You'll be able to do that with cash. Buy the place, yeah. And then put two different families on either side of each other, give them a great deal on rent to support them, and, man, everybody wins. Do you have a girlfriend right now? Even if I'm not.

Yeah, I do. Okay. What does she want for your future together? Yeah, nice little family home. She wants that duplex life. I think you know what to do, man. And you're in a great position to do it. But all it takes is putting this house on the market and going, well, tried that.

Wasn't for me. Wasn't for me. And by the way, you should get into radio because your voice is way better than mine. So smooth. Golly, I would love to have a voice like that. When it's time for me to eventually make a cash purchase on my first pure rental property, if I should look at townhomes and condos or single family homes, does it even matter?

I can give you more depth of my scenario if you need. Doesn't matter. I would do, if you're going to do a town home, I'd do a single family. I wouldn't do a duplex. And so I'd do a single family would be my first purchase, whether it's a town home, a condo or a standalone. And if you're going to do something that involves an HOA fee or a condo fee, be careful around that because that's obviously going to affect your resale later.

And it's also going to affect your cash flow. Even though you paid cash, if you got a huge HOA fee, then it's going to eat your cash flow. So be looking at that because some of these condos, if they've not been managed well in the past, they had to catch up on their maintenance and they're hammering the current occupants with high fees to catch up. And so deferred maintenance problems. And so you just look at the budget on the condo. You can get a copy of the budget. You can find out about the HOAs and see if you get sticker shock on that or the condo fee or whatever they're calling it in your area.

I would always stay in the bottom half of the market for sure. Yeah, Logan. What do you plan to spend? What were you thinking of spending? So I'll try to give you a 30-second long story short. I just bought my first ever home, and I'll have it paid off because I'm renting out both bedrooms. and I'm 24 years old. So my goal is to sell this place, and then with that, buy two things.

One is the cash purchase on my townhome condo in the amount of about 230, and then with my leftover money, I'll buy my own primary residence house. Good for you. Wow, that's fun. That's cool. That's a good plan, and all with cash. Well, that's my goal. So I bought my place.

I got quite lucky. I've been a longtime listener, so you guys have helped me out with it. And fortunately, I rent out both rooms and I don't have to have bomb tenants because whether they're there or not, I have my mortgage under control. Well done. So I'm trying to plan in advance. This question isn't an urgent one. I understand. Really, what I'm trying to do is just not have my first ever rental property.

Give me a bunch of headaches. And I don't know if the type of property matters. It doesn't as long as it's a good quality neighborhood. And the lower the price of the property, the more headaches you're going to have. Because that's the type of tenant you're going to have. Right. And so before I went broke in real estate,

I owned a bunch of super low-end stuff, trashy stuff. Yeah. But the return on investment was ridiculously good, but the hassle factor was ridiculously high because we're constantly dealing with some kind of criminal element, you know. and so it was a real problem. And not 100% of them are. Obviously, there's some good people there.

Don't misunderstand. But it's a lot different when you're renting something for the cheapest possible rent in the market or double that or triple that. So in terms of who you're having to deal with. And that goes even so far as to say if you left residential someday and owned a piece of commercial property, now you've a lot less hassle because you're dealing with a person with a business. that's your tenant, it's not a residential situation. The drama level goes way down. And so anyway, all of that to say.

Now, so Winston and Rachel, they bought their first property. Winston loves real estate. He always has, even before he knew me. And he manages all of our real estate now. And his very first property he bought was a small, I think it was a two-bedroom condo. And I think they held that about five years. and they made bank on that thing. I think it doubled in five years.

It was a great purchase, you know. So I don't mind condos at all, but you buy them like you buy them like you're going to sell them. And so if it's an ugly house and you get a good deal on it, when you get ready to sell it, it's still going to be an ugly house and you're going to give somebody a deal because it's ugly. So, you know, that kind of thing.

So just keep that kind of thing in mind. Everything that's a deal is not a deal. but if you can buy a good property that you're going to be proud when you're selling it, you can throw your shoulders back and be confident and kind and good on your price and all that kind of thing, then there you go. A lot of these calls could have been solved by connecting with a Ramsey trusted agent. We don't want you to make the same mistake. To find a trusted agent near you, go to ramsysolutions.com slash agent.