If you’re tired of living in an apartment, but you just can’t afford a brand new home, it may feel like your options are limited. However, a duplex or semi-detached home can be a great affordable option. These living quarters allow for some awesome benefits while providing you with a place to live that fits your budget.
You Don’t Have To Pay The Full Mortgage
When you decide to purchase a duplex, you can enjoy having a tenant to help you pay for the mortgage each month. Unlike in a single-family home, you can enjoy not having to foot the entire mortgage bill on your own. Most individuals who purchase a duplex are able to rent the other half out to tenants who pay for the entire cost of the mortgage. It really depends on your individual mortgage situation, but realize that a duplex allows for the advantage of having someone else help you to fund your monthly mortgage payment.
It’s Affordable
In most areas, purchasing a duplex is much cheaper than buying a single-family home. If your budget doesn’t allow for a large mortgage payment, then a duplex is a great option. It will require less of a downpayment than traditional single-family homes in your area, which can be a great benefit for those who don’t have a lot of money saved up. The bank is even more likely to fund the purchase of a duplex because there is the potential for receiving rental income from the other unit.
You Can Rent To Whoever You Want
One of the best parts about owning a duplex is that you can rent to whoever you choose. You’re not stuck sharing a common wall with some random person in an apartment complex that you can’t stand. Rather, you can choose who you want to live next to you. This is a big step up from apartment living that allows you to take your living arrangements into your own hands to make it functional for your lifestyle needs.
You Get To Keep An Eye On Your Rental Unit
When it comes to living in a duplex, your tenants are right next to you. This gives you the added benefit of being able to keep an eye on your rental property so that nothing majorly bad goes unseen. There’s also the added bonus that tenants are more likely to not be damaging to the property when they know that you live next door. It’s a win-win scenario for you as a rental property owner.
You Can Choose To Airbnb
If you live in a region of the country that is a popular tourist destination, then you can actually rent out your other unit on Airbnb. This will provide you with a nice sum of cash to pay for your monthly mortgage payment. As a rental property owner, you can typically make more money by renting out your other unit on Airbnb than you can having a full-time tenant living in the unit. This is again assuming you’re in a desirable vacation destination where people will need a place to stay. With this option, you don’t have to worry about having tenants around the clock. If you have one set of bad tenants, they’re going to be gone in a week maximum. You’re not stuck with them for a year-long lease.
It’s A Great Starter Towards A Single Family Home
If you’re still in that grey area of not settling down quite yet, a duplex can be a great starter home option. It provides more responsibilities than your apartment rental but doesn’t overload you too much as a new single-family home would. You get to experience the homeowner’s responsibilities of maintenance and lawn care. However, it’s on a smaller scale than with a traditional single-family home.
More Tax Deductions
When you purchase duplex homes, you get access to way more tax deductions than you do as a single-family homeowner. You can deduct expenses that you incur for the second unit. This could be things like maintenance costs, management costs, advertising costs, half your utility bills, and so forth. All these expenses can be deducted on your Schedule E tax form that gets filled out for your duplex. As a traditional homeowner, you can’t deduct these things on your tax return.
Better Mortgage Interest Rates
In real estate investing, lenders tend to classify properties as owner-occupied, or non-owner occupied. Essentially, that means that you either live in the property, or you don’t. With a rental property that you don’t live in, you will receive higher interest rates from the lender on your mortgage. Any investment property that is non-owner occupied immediately means you’ll be paying more in interest. With a semi-detached home or a duplex, your home is owner-occupied. While you may not live in both units of the duplex, you still live in one. This gives you access to lower home mortgage interest rates. You can end up saving yourself a bundle when it comes to paying back your mortgage in the form of not having to pay such a high-interest rate.
You Learn To Be A Landlord
If you’re looking for a way to break into the real estate investing market, then purchasing a dual unit home is a great start. It will allow you to get your first experience of being a landlord while you adapt to that kind of lifestyle. You’ll get to learn what it’s like to deal with tenants, how to formulate leases, and so forth. This is a crucial experience you’ll need over the long run if you plan on sticking to the real estate investing wealth-building strategy.
It Can Be Your Home Office Or Guest House
If you purchase a dual unit home, you don’t have to rent out the other side. Rather, you could use the space as a guest home for when friends and family come to stay. Or, you can utilize the extra space as your home office space for a day when you don’t feel like commuting to work. There are really tons of possibilities of things that you can do in your added space.
As you can see, there are tons of benefits of buying a duplex or semi-detached home. If you’ve been on edge about doing so, hopefully, we just convinced you to take the plunge. We’re sure you’ll be thankful that you did later down the road as you start enjoying all the benefits that you learned about above.
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