One of the best ways to “live for free” is a strategy almost every successful real estate investor uses at some point in their journey: house hacking. You’ve probably heard of it before—house hacking allows you to significantly reduce (or eliminate) your mortgage/rent payment, so your housing cost hits rock bottom or even zero. This helps you save more money every month, invest faster, and reach financial freedom after a short (but worthwhile) period of sacrifice.
Which US markets are best for house hacking, getting a great job, and paying next to nothing for housing? We’re presenting four of the best house hacking markets in the country, some of which you’ll probably be tempted to move to. These markets all have lower home prices but respectable wages, things to do, and great rents for you to collect.
Who better to judge these markets than the man who wrote The House Hacking Strategy, Craig Curelop? Data scientist Austin Wolff is pitching these four real estate markets to Craig and Dave as the house hacking duo votes on whether they’d move to that market to house hack or stay put where they are.
Dave:
These are four cities that you can live for free in 2025. Today we’re talking house hacking. You buy a multi-unit property and your tenants drastically reduce or maybe even completely eliminate your own living expenses. The thing is, it doesn’t work everywhere, so you have to pick carefully and stick around because in today’s episode we’ll tell you where you should be looking. What’s up everyone? It’s Dave Meyer here on the BiggerPockets Podcast and today on the show we’re talking about where to house hack. And this question is a little bit trickier than it might seem and a little bit trickier than it used to be because you got to pick a market that has strong fundamentals for real estate, but also you got to pick a place that you actually want to live and work. And when you do all that calculation, often it’s a smaller cross section of…