Craig Curelop  01:06
Yes, so it actually really all started when I got out of college. I went to my quote, unquote dream job out in California, where I worked for a venture debt company. So we basically gave hard money loans to startup companies. The first six months were fine, but then I realized that I was just working my butt off week after week — 60, 70, 80-hour weeks — just to make my boss 10 times more money than me and make his boss 10 times more money than him. 

So, I really think that wasn’t a lifestyle for me, and I’d rather put my hard work towards something else. And then, I discovered financial independence and all that kind of stuff. I started thinking of startups and all that. That didn’t really pan out. And then I just said, “You know what? Why reinvent the wheel? Real estate has worked for millions of people over the years. Why not just invest in real estate?” So that’s kind of the route I took. I found Bigger Pockets, ended up getting a job in Bigger Pockets. And here I am now, house hacking whole bunch and investing in real estate. 

Robert Leonard  01:58
When you were getting started in real estate, were you up against a stigma that real estate was really only for the rich, and you couldn’t necessarily do it unless you had a lot of money? Or did you already know of strategies that you could jump right into? 

Craig Curelop  02:10
I had no idea. One of my interns at my last job told me that his dad had bought like a nine-unit building when he was like, 25, and he had just paid it off. You know, he’s like, 45 or 50 now. And like, it’s just a huge cash cow four months ago. I found it interesting. If he could do that at 25, and I was like 23 at the time, I was thinking like what, why the heck can’t I do that? So I started to look into it more. I read Brandon Turner’s book, the book on rental property investing that kinda opened my world, and how’s it going; like, look like anyone can do this. You just need like, you know, 10, $15,000, and you got it.

Robert Leonard  02:44
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I experienced as well. When I first got into real estate, I thought it was going to be something that you had to be super-wealthy to get involved in. And then, like you said, really not. That stigma is kind of old compared to what’s available these days. 

Craig Curelop  02:58
Yeah, I mean, there’s definitely, there’s so many loan products and stuff out there for you to just do low money down. It’s super powerful, especially if you’re mobile and don’t mind living in different places each year.

Robert Leonard  03:08
Let’s talk about house hacking. What exactly is that strategy?

Craig Curelop  03:13
Yeah, so house hacking is the idea that you buy a one-to-four unit property with typically a 3 – 5% down loan. Because you’re putting such a low amount down, you’re required to live there for one year. While you’re living there, you rent out the other rooms or the other units. Rent from those other rooms or units covers your mortgage, so you are now living for free. You’re building equity in a house, and all of these things, all these wealth generators of real estate are working for you so that you’re building tremendous amounts of wealth over time. And because you’re saving so much, you’re able to buy the next one in one year and buy the next one after that, and the year after that. You just start growing this massive portfolio that’s building you tons of wealth over time. It’s hard not to get rich that way.

Robert Leonard  03:55
Is it a scalable strategy? Can it be repeated multiple times?

Craig Curelop  04:00
Yeah, I mean, I’m on my third one right now. And I haven’t really had any problem with it. You know, you get to a point, which I’m kind of at right now, where I now want to buy more than once a year, but you can’t buy more than one house hack a year. But you do two or three of them, and you’ve got experience being a landlord. You’re kind of ready to take that next step into maybe doing some sort of like BRRRR investing, or just traditional buy-and-hold, or maybe flipping, something like that. But it kind of primes you for true real estate investing.

Robert Leonard  04:27
So there’s no loan covenants or anything like that, that restricts you from doing more than one of these, or having more than one owner-occupied loan at a time?

Craig Curelop  04:37
Nope. You just have to live there for one year, and then you can go ahead and get another owner-occupied loan. That’s the only stipulation.

Robert Leonard  04:43
So who is this strategy perfect for and who might it not work so well for?

Craig Curelop  04:48
I think there’s a form of this strategy that works for everybody. So I talked about this in the book, as well, where like, basically, it’s like the comfort continuum, and you’re going to sacrifice comfortability and profitability. I would say, it is 100% best for someone like our age, you know, in their mid to late 20s, or even early 20s. They’re going to buy a single-family house, rent out the rooms. They’re covering the mortgage. They’re basically just living as they did in college, right? If you have a family, that’s a little bit less feasible. You kind of go up that continuum; maybe you buy a duplex, triplex, or quad, you and your family have their own unit you share, then you just share the overall building with other tenants. If that still doesn’t seem like what you want to do, you can always buy your dream house. But you know, just buy a house that has a mother-in-law suite in the basement, or maybe like a casita in the backyard. You rent that out on Airbnb for the long term, such that the rent from that maybe doesn’t totally offset your mortgage, but at least helps maybe $1,000 or so a month. I think any of these strategies work, you just have to figure out what works best for you.

Robert Leonard  05:46
What are the most important things that people need to look for when they’re actually trying to find the house hack deal?

Craig Curelop  05:52
Depends on what deal you’re looking for. So if you’re looking to do something like the single-family house, I’d recommend you really want the most bedrooms and bathrooms for your dollar. And so I always like to look for things that are like four beds, two baths, with 2000 square feet or more. If there are more than 2000 square feet, there’s likely enough room to add a fifth bedroom. I’d like to try to have at least five or six bedrooms with at least three bathrooms, and that is usually a pretty good ratio for everybody.

Robert Leonard  06:18
How about in a multi-unit property?

Craig Curelop  06:20
Then you just have to make sure it’s in a good location. You know, maybe you’ve got like, usually it’s a cut of two bedrooms– two beds, one bath. Those are kind of perfect. Those are very easy to rent out. If you want to do the luxurious house hack, where you’ve got that mother-in-law suite, you just got to make sure that, hey, can you easily make it such that the basement unit or the dwelling unit can be accessed without accessing through your house. Those are kinds of things that I look for.

Robert Leonard  06:43
For a new investor, or somebody that’s looking to house hack, how important is it for them to consider the numbers of the investment property when they move out? Because if you don’t think about that, could you buy a house hack that’s really good as a house hack when you’re living there, but when you move out and move on to your next deal, and it’s an actual investment property, maybe it isn’t so great?

Craig Curelop  07:05
So usually, it tends to work better when you move out, right? Because you’re occupying a room, and you’re living for free in that room. So when you move out, you can then rent your room that you were living in. And now that place is totally cash flowing. That’s five or 600 bucks more than if you are occupying. If you’re doing the rent by the room strategy, this is kind of the only time where works a little bit differently. That’s like the biggest difference. If you have your own unit, it’s easy to rent out. No problem. But if you’re doing that single-family rent by the room strategy, you kind of have to figure out, okay, do you want to manage this by the room? If yes, then great. If not, can someone else do it for you? If you can’t find anyone else to do it for you, then you have to rent it out as a full unit and you probably won’t get as much money for that full unit. But you just kind of have to work the numbers out. I would recommend making sure your numbers work both as rent by the room rental, and as well as if you were to rent it out as a full unit with you not living there. 

Robert Leonard  07:58
Do you generally leave it as a rent by the room when you move out, or do you traditionally move it to a traditional rental?

Craig Curelop  08:05
I always leave it to rent by the room. I found a property manager that does rent by the room. So I don’t really deal with all the crap. I just, you know, pay her a couple of hundred bucks a month to handle it.

Robert Leonard  08:12
When you move out, tenants aren’t worried about somebody else coming in? They’re okay with that agreement?

Craig Curelop  08:19

Yeah, well, the woman is a property manager, right? So that is her job. I would just say, hey, this woman is way more professional than me. She does her job way better than me. She is a property manager. So, she’s got her stuff together way more than I would, and she’s probably way nicer than me, as well. So I just kind of lay that out in front of them. And they kind of say okay, they’re getting a better deal out of it. You know, it’s probably better. Most people don’t want to live with their landlord. They don’t want the landlord to be overshadowing, so I haven’t had any problems with that.

Robert Leonard  08:21
It’s really interesting to hear you say that because I thought that when people house hacked and they eventually moved out, I was thinking that most people would convert it to a traditional rent. Not necessarily kick those people out, but align the expiration of their lease with when they plan on leaving, and then just filling it with a normal, normal lease for the whole property rather than just by the room.

Craig Curelop  09:13
Yeah, I think most people do that. I just figured, hey, why not just try it this way? I mean, I’ve already got all the common areas furnished. If I had to do that, I’d have to take out all the furniture. It’s way more of a pain. They just take my stuff out of my room and just have someone come in and go my spot.

Robert Leonard  09:31
Yeah, I guess it’s a little different too, right? You’re looking at five, six-bedroom houses with two, three bathrooms. That’s much larger than I think probably a lot of people are looking for, originally. They’re probably looking at more like two, three, maybe four-bedroom properties, which I guess is probably easier to rent to a family through traditional lease than maybe a five or six-bedroom house.

Craig Curelop  09:50
Yeah, and I think like it all depends on your strategy. I’ve never understood why people think that families don’t like five bedrooms. I just feel like, if you’ve got like a family of four, your parents get a room, each kid gets a room, there’s an office, and then there’s a guest bedroom.

Robert Leonard  10:05
No, it really isn’t. But I guess for me around here, Northern Boston area, I don’t seem to see a lot of five or six-bedroom houses. I mean, it seems, seems like that would be a really big house. 

Craig Curelop  10:15
I grew up in a five-bedroom house. That was the middle of nowhere, Massachusetts. So yeah, I guess it’s just different depending on where you are.

Robert Leonard  10:22
So, in a real estate market, like we’re experiencing right now, where prices are generally pretty high, or just inexpensive markets in general, is this strategy possible? 

Craig Curelop  10:32
Yeah, so when, when prices are high, it definitely comes a little bit more interesting. You have to get a little bit creative. It comes to a point where you can’t really find deals, you have to make deals. And what I mean by that is like, you have to see things that other people don’t see. So, maybe getting a three-bed, two baths, and converting it to a five-bedroom, three baths. I think that is like, how to make probably the most money in this situation because you’ll add a lot of equity to the property, as well there’s a whole bunch of cash flow, and that’s a strategy. 

You know, I’ve got a friend who lives in San Francisco who did this. He rented a six or seven-bedroom house in San Francisco for like $6,000 a month, like an absurd price. But San Francisco is a very desirable place to live. A lot of entrepreneurs want to live there, and they want to live there with other entrepreneurs. We satisfy that need by basically having something like an entrepreneur co-living space where he put a bunch of bunk beds in the rooms, like two bunk beds per room and charge 1200 dollars a bed. He was bringing in 18 grand, paying his landlord six, using three grand for like improvements and all that kind of stuff. Each month, he was netting nine grand. I mean, that’s house hacking. That’s like absurd numbers. So, you know, he’s making 9000 times 12 months –it’s  $84,000 a year. That’s a salary that he’s making just on his housing. And he’s living for free. So it’s just like crazy when you think about it.

Robert Leonard  11:50
Yeah, not only is he getting rid of most people’s largest expense but as you said, I mean, he’s making a salary off that. That’s what’s incredible.

Craig Curelop  11:57
That’s an extreme scenario, but kind of like the only ones that I’ve heard of that actually truly worked in those big cities like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles. Boston is probably one of those too, you know. You get to the outskirts of Boston, you might make be able to make it work a little more.

Robert Leonard  12:13
I mean, you’re in the Denver market. And you’re, like you said, you’re consistently doing this. You’re on your third one and Denver is not a super cheap city. I mean, it’s not super expensive, like some others like San Francisco, but I mean, it’s not cheap. 

Craig Curelop  12:26
Yeah, the good thing about Denver is that the outskirts of Denver isn’t that expensive quite yet. You go outside of San Francisco, until you go down the peninsula until like San Mateo, Palo Alto, or even on the East Bay, like Oakland, it’s still very expensive. You have to go like two hours to get to the inexpensive houses. Denver, you go 10 minutes on the highway, and you’re into houses that are 300 to 400,000. Very affordable, and work very well with the strategy.

Robert Leonard  12:49
What are some of the hidden, or just often overlooked, parts of a house hack that somebody listening to the show should really be aware of when they’re starting their first house hack?

Craig Curelop  13:02
For most people, a house hack will be their first investment. It is very scary putting that amount of money down on anything, but I would recommend is just you have to go do it. Because it doesn’t really matter about getting the best deal. It doesn’t matter about getting 20 grand off the purchase price. It matters that you get in, and get in early and fast. So, you can start saving on rent. Start building that equity in the property. Start paying down the loan. And most importantly, you got that ticker starts, right? That one-year timer starts until you can get your next one. If you wait in six months for the perfect deal, sure, you may save 10 or 15 grand, but you’re going to make up that 10, 15 grand through loan pay down, through cash flow, through rent savings, and depreciation in those months. Like there’s a huge opportunity cost with waiting for a house hack. And that doesn’t even include the fact that you can’t get another house hack until a year and six months later instead of just a year later. That’s the biggest thing that people don’t quite understand, and that I try to really pound into besides just like, just go do a deal.

Robert Leonard  14:03
Do you think it’s often overlooked about how professional people need to handle it? So if you’re living in the property with other people, if it’s a single unit, so just a single-family house. It’s probably more common than a duplex or three or four units. Do you think it’s common for people to not necessarily really have a legal lease, and do all the legal paperwork that’s needed?

Craig Curelop  14:24
I would say there are definitely people that do it. I hope that no one in the Bigger Pockets community or in your community does it. It’s an unnecessary risk, you know. There’s always like, CYA. Get yourself a good lease. We have them on Bigger Pockets. Yeah, just do it all the right way. Don’t take any shortcuts, because it will come back to bite you at some point.

Robert Leonard  14:43
So treat it as if it is, truly, a regular investment property. Cross all your T’s, dot all your I’s.

Craig Curelop  14:49
Yeah, treat it like a businessman. You gotta treat it like a business. You know, I even background check and credit check my friends. Everyone goes through the same exact process. I don’t care who you are, and if you don’t like it, then don’t live with me. I did not do this one time, right? I did not do a background check or credit check one time, and it came back to bite me. So, every time I just got to do it.

Robert Leonard  15:09
How did that one come back to bite you?

Craig Curelop  15:11
So, on my most recent property, you know, I was on my third one, getting kind of cocky, getting kind of lazy and too confident, and there were people that were looking at my top. So basically, my third house hack is a six-bed, three-bath–it’s a three bed, two baths on top, three bed, one bath on the bottom. I had people come in to look at the top, but that had already been filled. They were coming anyway. So I just said whatever I’ll show them the basement. And I showed them the basement and it was going to be month to month because I was redoing the whole basement besides the bedrooms, so they couldn’t live there, because they would basically live in a construction zone. I knew it was just gonna be a once a month, so it’s good, whatever. I don’t need to do a background check, credit check, because again, what’s the worst that could happen? 

Well, I found out about the first day I got the contractors there. The contractors went down the hallway, took some carpet, and they smelt this atrocious smell coming from the rooms. They didn’t know what it was. And so I looked up the woman’s name, who I accepted on Google –which you should do this before you put them in your house– and she was on our county’s most wanted list for hard drugs. So the woman was doing meth or crack or something in my basement during the day while I wasn’t there, and the contractors were there. I was fortunate in that I just basically did cash for keys, and said, hey, I’ll give you your rent, security deposit and $500. Just get out. They left no problem at the end of the week. But that could have been way, way worse, right? Because it would have been, you know, almost two months. Most months, I have to give at least 30 days’ notice. So the one time I didn’t screen properly, it came back to bite me, which was a good lesson. And I know now that just don’t take any shortcuts, even if it’s month to month.

Robert Leonard  16:46
Yeah, that’s a very good lesson. It’s an unfortunate story, but you got out of it pretty safe. And hopefully, the people listening can learn from that, and make sure they treat their property as a business. Not just take people’s word for it.

Craig Curelop  17:00
Yes, I learned from my mistakes.

Robert Leonard  17:03
Smart people learn from their own mistakes, but wise people learn from others’ mistakes.

Craig Curelop  17:07
That’s right.

Robert Leonard  17:07
Learn from Craig’s mistakes here. Now in the case of someone who buys a property with more than one unit, so not a single family but a duplex, triplex, or fourplex, should they use a property manager for the units they’re not living in?

Craig Curelop  17:22
I would say at first, no, just because you want to understand how to manage the property. That way, when you have a property manager, you know how to manage that property manager, and make sure that he or she is doing it right. It’s not like a huge burden on you, because it’s not like you’re going out of your way to manage that property. You’re literally just going home. It’s where you’d go anyway. I say, if you move out of that property, and on your second one, then you kind of get into the waters of, okay, like maybe, maybe it does make sense to have a property manager.

Robert Leonard  17:49
Yeah, at that point, it’s really up to the owner. But is there ever any issues with the landlord living in the property? I mean, you’re doing your screening. So essentially, you should have good tenants living there. But is there ever any concern or any issues with the landlord living in the property?

Craig Curelop  18:06
I have not had any issues. I kind of just like treat people as roommates most of the time. And the only time I play that landlord role, is when they first move in, and they’re like signing leases, doing move in-move outs, and all that kind of stuff, and if things go wrong. And things don’t go wrong that often if you screen them properly. So, in most cases, I am just like a roommate, and we go out, we hang out. I act no differently. I think they appreciate that.

Robert Leonard  18:33
What do you think holds people back from doing that strategy? Why do you think more people aren’t doing it?

Craig Curelop  18:38
I think it’s a little bit more work and a little bit more responsibility. And people are afraid of that. People are also afraid of putting down 15, $20,000, or whatever it is, depending on your market on a house. And yeah, I think it really boils down to just being too much work and responsibility and they don’t want to handle it. They don’t want to go through the process of learning and all that kind of stuff.

Robert Leonard  19:00
Yeah, I think it’s also the comfortability scale that you mentioned before. I think some people just want the comfort of having their own home.

Craig Curelop  19:08
Yeah, totally. I think it’s kind of a status play too, right? Like people are gonna, they’re gonna think that you’re poor, because you’re living with people. You have to stop caring about what other people think. Just know that you’re on the right path. Other people aren’t seeing your bank account. So as long as you know that you’re building wealth and becoming rich, like who, who cares if you ride a beat-up car and live in a crappy apartment if your bank account is 10 times the amount of someone else’s, right? You have way more freedom that way.

Robert Leonard  19:34
Yeah. And two, three years down the line, you’ll have the last laugh.

Craig Curelop  19:39
For sure. People say it’s too much work and too much responsibility. Well, I think working for 40 years is too much work and too much responsibility. So I’d rather like to have a little bit extra work responsibility for five or so years now than take the next 40 years.

Robert Leonard  19:53
Yeah, when you think of it that way, it’s really not, not a huge deal to take a few hours, read your book, read some of the things on Bigger Pockets, get up-to-date with the strategy, and then go implement it, when you can cut 35 years off of your working career.

Craig Curelop  20:08
And that allows you to do, literally, whatever you want to do. Some people like to travel, some people want to spend time with their family, some people want to start a business. But once you hit that point of financial independence, that’s when you can really start to get like really, really wealthy, because you can start taking risks that people who aren’t financially independent can’t take, right? Like, once you’re financially independent, you then are playing to win, rather than playing not to lose, right? Like most people in W2 jobs are playing not to lose. Because if they lose their job, and then what, right? So, you have to kind of play to win.

Robert Leonard  20:37
So when you say financial independence, what do you mean by that? 

Craig Curelop  20:42
Financial independence is the idea that your passive income outside of your W2 satisfies all your expenses. So if you have two or three properties, if you have, say, you spend $2,000 a month, and you’ve got three properties at each cash flows you a $1,000 a month. You’re making $3,000 a month and you’re only spending $2,000 a month. When you no longer have to work, you’re financially independent.

Robert Leonard  21:03
What is the best book for a real estate investor to read? 

Craig Curelop  21:06
I think, if you, if you’re just getting started, I think Brandon and Josh just came out with a book called, like, How to Invest in Real Estate. I think that’s a great starting point. If you’re one step after that, I would recommend Brandon Turner’s book on the book on rental property investing. I hate to just plug Bigger Pockets books, but I just think those books are very educational, very entertaining, and very easy to read. So it’s just like anyone can pick them up and read them. And they’re very easy.

Robert Leonard  21:33
And I mean, when you search real estate books or anything like that on Amazon, or even Google, it’s pretty much flooded with, with Bigger Pockets books. You’d be hard-pressed to not find them anyway. Do you think house hacking is the best strategy for somebody getting started? 

Craig Curelop  21:47
Hundred percent. The returns you get from house hacking, are so large. You’re putting such a small amount down. And almost every scenario that I’ve ever witnessed, you’re getting at least 100% of your net worth back. So if you factor in your cash flow, your rent savings, your appreciation, your loan pay down, and your tax benefits–which is a whole new other topic–it’s almost impossible not to make your entire lump sum of money back in one year. What other investment gives you 100% return, like consistently, without like, all of the risk is like putting it all into an angel fund or a startup? I just don’t see it. And then not only is it like a super powerful way to build wealth, but you’re also getting that landlord experience when you’re being a landlord. And it’s not too out of your way. Your lifestyle won’t change all that much, especially if you’re already living with roommates.

Robert Leonard  22:36
Without going to tax too much, what are some of the tax benefits that you can get from house hack?

Craig Curelop  22:44
So, the biggest one is this little thing called depreciation. What the IRS basically says is that your house will devalue over time. So they take the purchase price of the house and they divide it by 27 and a half years, and that is the amount of depreciation you’ll take in a given year. So if you buy a property that’s $275,000 divided by 27 and a half years, you know, it’s $10,000 a year. And that’s a loss to you on your tax forms. But you’re not actually spending $10,000, right? You’re taking that loss. So any rental income that you receive, you can subtract all your expenses, like I subtract my (*inaudible*) paper and all the stuff that I buy for the house. I subtract all that. I subtract the depreciation. I usually end up with a net loss of say, like 10 or $15,000. And you’re then allowed to take that $15,000 loss and apply it to your W2 income. So if I make say $100,000 a year, that (*inaudible*) $15,000 loss will then make it look like I’ve only made $85,000 a year, which could put me in a different bracket, and I’ll be taxed on less. So that’s like one of the many ways real estate helps you. 

Robert Leonard  23:50
And so you’re able to do that on a house hack, even though it’s an owner-occupied property?

Craig Curelop  23:56
Yep. The only caveat with a house hack is that you can only depreciate the space you do not occupy. For example, if I had a 2000 square foot house, and I lived in a room that was 100 square feet, I could depreciate 1900, or 2000, or 95% of the purchase price of the house for that first year. And then the second year when I move out, I can depreciate the whole thing.

Robert Leonard  24:16
It’s really interesting. I’ve done two house hacks myself, and I wasn’t super familiar with that when I did it. So I didn’t take huge advantage of that. I wasn’t in that property very long, but for me, yeah, that’s a really interesting component of it. Working at Bigger Pockets, and just being around successful real estate investors, I’m sure you’ve heard some really good advice. What has been the best piece of real estate advice that you’ve ever received?

Craig Curelop  24:40
This is the first one that comes to mind and I’m not sure if it’s the best, but you know. Obviously, always screen your tenants, and make sure you always do a credit check. And make sure their credit check is above your threshold, because any time that I have seen, or that anyone I know has had a bad tenant, their credit score has been poor, right? Anyone who cares about paying rent, and who cares about your property, will also care about their credit score and will have likely have a high credit score and pay off their debts. There’s one caveat is that like, if the person is super young, and they just don’t have enough history, like if they’re 22, 21 don’t have enough history, then that’s fine. I’ll let that exception go. But then I’ll usually just require a cosigner. So, definitely, if there’s one metric you’re going to pull on tenants, credit score.

Robert Leonard  25:24
What do you think is the biggest misconception around house hacking that most people have? 

Craig Curelop  25:29
That it’s a lot of work. It’s not a lot of work. Like it’s a lot of work at first, but after like the first month or two, and it once it’s all filled, you just kind of kick back and chill. And you just let the money kind of roll in. So, I feel like that’s a huge misconception.

Robert Leonard  25:42
Do you tend to have a lot of turnover in house hacks with the rent by the room strategy?

Craig Curelop  25:48
Yeah, so that is probably one downside. You know, people who rent by the room typically don’t live there for years, and years, and years, right? They’re living there for a year, probably at the most, maybe a few months. But again, you can make way more rent by the room. For example, like my five-bedroom house, I make about 3500 in rent, in rent by the room. If I did it, like just as a full unit, I can probably get like 23 or 2400. So it’s like $1,000 plus difference every month. So again, I think it’s worth it.

Robert Leonard  26:16
I mean, when people are renting out a room, they’re not wearing out the property like you would if you had a tenant in the whole property.  And you don’t have to necessarily do that whole rehab or *inaudible* once you switch over tenants. So maybe the turnover cost probably isn’t as high.

Craig Curelop  26:31
Yeah, I don’t really like cleaning the property in between because like, everyone else is, like already there. I just got to make sure it stays clean. It’s up to them to make sure it stays clean, honestly. It’s like in the lease that says how you got to keep it clean, you gotta be quiet, you gotta be respectful.

Robert Leonard  26:44
What do you do for your security deposits on your house hacks? Is it similar to a traditional rental where it’s one times the monthly rent?

Craig Curelop  26:53
That exact thing, one times rent. I always say the security deposit is what basically locks you in. Like, once I get the security deposit, places yours, I will take it off the market. So usually I do the security deposit and lease at the same time, and then I do first month’s rent too, when they move in. Because when you do rent by the room, people, you tend to attract a demographic that’s like, may not have three months’ worth of rent right away. So you kind of have to accommodate for that a little bit. 

Robert Leonard  27:17
Do you do any sort of interview or meet and greet, if you will, of the people that are currently living there with the prospective tenant? Or is it kind of up to your discretion? 

Craig Curelop  27:28
It’s really up to my discretion. If they have opinions, I definitely take them into consideration. I always let them know when the showings are. They are more than welcome to come around and meet people that are coming in now. Usually, they don’t care, they don’t even want to be seen during the showings.

Robert Leonard  27:45
Thanks for your time, Craig. You really provided a lot of value for someone who’s looking for a way to get started in real estate investing, or just for someone who’s always wanted to learn more about house hacking. Where can the audience go to connect with you?

Craig Curelop  27:58
Yeah, so you know, I did write the book about house hacking. You can get that at biggerpockets.com/househack. And if you want to follow me or reach out to me, I recommend doing so on Instagram. My Instagram account is @thefiguy. So I’m at the @thefiguy. 

Robert Leonard  28:14
I’ll be sure to put links to Craig’s social media and his book in the show notes for you guys to check it out. Craig, thanks so much for your time, I really appreciate it. 

Craig Curelop  28:23
Awesome, and thanks for having on the show.

Robert Leonard  28:25
Alright, guys, that’s all I have for this week’s episode of Real Estate Investing. I’ll see you again next week.

Outro  28:32
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