Are my reserves too high for a house hack deal?
Hey house hacking community,
I've been active on these forums for a while and finally getting ready to purchase my first house hack within the next 3 months.
My goal is to save on my living expenses and pay less than I am renting right now (my fiance and I pay $1,450 and split it).
Since I'm relatively versed in general real estate investing knowledge, I'm aware of all of the line items to account for when analyzing a property. Being conservative with my reserves is causing a lot of deals to look bad on paper (after moving out of the property). I'm not expecting a property to cash flow with 3.5-5% down and 6.5-7% interest, but I'd like to see it at least get close to breaking after moving out.
Here is what I'm taking for reserves (outside of location specific expenses like home insurance, utilties, taxes etc.)
- 10% for future property management
-10% for vacancy
-10% for CapEx
-5% for repairs and maintenance
-5% for lawn and grounds keeping
-0.5% of purchase price for PMI based on my credit score
For a house hack, is this too conservative? Am I passing up on potentially lucrative house hack deals because I'm taking too much out? Despite the book being written in 2019, Craig Curelop's house hacking book describes the seemingly low reserves that he takes of $300-600 per month.
Would love a sanity check from some fellow house hackers!
Thanks so much for your time.
-Ben, aspiring multifamily house hacker