Your questions, answered straight.

House hacking means buying a home with more than one unit, living in one, and renting out the rest. That can be a house with an ADU, a duplex, a triplex or a fourplex. A home with two to four units that you live in is financed as a home, so the down payment can be 0% with a VA loan, 3.5% with FHA or 5% with a conventional loan. Lenders also count 75% of the other units' rent toward what you qualify for.

An ADU is an accessory dwelling unit: a second, smaller home on the same lot as a house, such as a garage apartment or a backyard cottage. You can live in one and rent the other. A house with an ADU is financed as a single-family home: 3% down on a conventional loan for a first-time buyer, 5% otherwise, 3.5% with FHA. FHA counts rent from one existing ADU. Conventional loans count it in narrower cases, so which loan you use matters. Send the address and we check it before you offer.

Yes. These are loans for a home you live in, so you move into one of the units and live there, typically for at least a year. Your loan documents set out the exact terms.

Yes. Either one is a home when you live in it, so a first-time buyer uses the same FHA, VA and conventional loans they would use on any house. The difference is that rent from the other home can help you qualify. We check the home and tell you which loan fits before you offer.

Plan for three things: the down payment, closing costs, and on some loans a few months of payments left in the bank after closing. On a $500,000 duplex, 3.5% down is $17,500 and 5% down is $25,000. This site budgets closing costs at 2.5% of the price, which is $12,500 here.

The rent counts toward it, so the answer is different for every home. As a planning figure, this site uses a 43% debt-to-income limit and counts 75% of the other units' rent as income. Every listing shows the income it takes to qualify, and the estimate on this site gives you your own number with no credit check.

It depends on the state. Texas counties reset a home's taxable value around the sale price, so plan on a new bill and not the seller's old one, and an owner who lives there can file for a homestead exemption on the part they live in. Colorado does not reset the value at a sale and has no general homestead exemption, so the current bill is a fair guide until the county's next reappraisal. Every listing on this site shows the tax figure inside its monthly cost.

Yes. It is a home bought with a small down payment and a rental on the same lot, so it carries the risks of both: prices can fall, a unit can sit empty, and a tenant can fall behind on rent. You plan for that in the numbers before you buy. Every listing here shows the monthly cost with the rent and before it, so you can pick a home you could still pay for in a month with no rent.

Empty months and repairs, and both are already in the numbers here. The monthly cost on each listing sets aside 5% of the rent for vacancy and 10 to 14.5% for upkeep, more on older homes. Those are averages and the real bills come in lumps, so keep savings for them.

No. It can be the first rental you own. Some loans look at landlord experience before they count the rent toward your income, so we check that first and tell you which loan fits.

You share a wall, a yard or a driveway with the people who pay you rent, and you are close by when something needs fixing. It works when the lease is written down and you hold to it the same way every time.

Often, yes. Once you have lived there for the time your loan asks, typically a year, many owners move and keep the home as a rental. Your loan documents set out the terms for yours.

You pick what you need from a short list and add what you know: an address, a rough income, an offer on the table. We look at the home and your numbers against the loans that fit. You get an answer you can act on: a price range and the homes that fit it, the numbers on a home you picked, or a price and a plan for a property you own.

Asking is free, and no credit is pulled. You do not need documents either, and rough numbers are fine. If you later ask for a pre-approval, nothing is pulled until you say so.

Both. Series sells houses with an ADU, duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes to the people who will live in them, and arranges the loan. Doing both means the home and the loan are worked out together from the first day.

Listings on this site are in Texas and Colorado: Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin in Texas, and Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs in Colorado. They come from the local MLS in each market.

Asking, the estimate and the search are free. Series is paid when a purchase or a sale closes, and not before. What we would be paid is put in writing before you sign anything.

It is our estimate of what you would pay each month after rent. We add up the loan payment, property tax, insurance and any HOA dues or utilities on file, set aside money for repairs and vacancy, and subtract the rent from the units you would not live in. It assumes 20% down on a 30-year fixed loan at 6.0%, or 5.6% on a duplex. Open the listing to change the down payment and to see where each rent figure came from.

It means the listing passed our first check against the rules for loans on a home you live in: it has two to four units, or is a house with an ADU, and its price is in the range those loans reach. Your lender and the appraisal make the final decision on any one home.