Pod Insights BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast 4 Cities Where You Can Live for Free in 2025 About this episode 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. In This Episode We Cover: How to reduce (or eliminate) your monthly mortgage/rent payment with house hacking The different levels of house hacking (comfort vs. profitability) What makes a market worthwhile to house hack in (it ISN’T just about the money) A mountain biking capital with booming job growth and low home prices A “smart-grid” affordable city close to two major markets Great jobs, an excellent airport, solid schools, and strong growth from this underrated southern market Buying a house for under $300K in this city with a sports atmosphere And So Much More! Links from the Show Join BiggerPockets for FREE Let Us Know What You Thought of the Show! Ask Your Question on the BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets YouTube Join the Future of Real Estate Investing with Fundrise Grab Craig’s Book “The House Hacking Strategy” Find an Investor-Friendly Agent in Your Area The 10 Best Markets for Your First House Hack Connect with Austin Connect with Craig Connect with Dave (00:00) Intro (01:57) What is House Hacking? (05:11) Should You Move to House Hack? (07:51) 1. Fayetteville, Arkansas (11:59) 2. Chattanooga, Tennessee (15:39) 3. Charlotte, North Carolina (20:08) 4. Indianapolis, Indiana (24:56) How to Start House Hacking Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1077 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [email protected] . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dave Meyer? 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.
0:27 Dave Meyer? 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 cities than you might think. But we've done that research for you. We've crunched the numbers and we found four really solid markets for house hackers in 2025. We're going to share them with you today. Joining me on this episode, we have two guests. We have Craig Krierlopp, who's a former BiggerPockets employee who
1:09 Dave Meyer? achieved financial freedom mainly through house hacking. And now he's an agent and investor, both in Colorado and in Idaho. And we have Austin Wolf, who's a current BiggerPockets employee and data analyst who has house hacking experience himself. Austin, thanks for joining us here today.
1:25 Speaker 01 Happy to be here.
1:26 Dave Meyer? And Craig, welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast. Always good to see you.
1:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, always good to see you, too. Love being here.
1:31 Dave Meyer? All right, Austin, let's start with you. You are an analyst. You're always looking at housing markets. And today, we're talking about house hacking, something I guess all three of us have experience with, which is fun. You've pulled four markets that you think are especially appealing to house hackers. And basically, the format of the show, Craig, that we want to do is, Austin, he's going to pitch them to us. And then we have to decide if we would want to move there and house hack. Before we get into that, maybe Craig, let's, let's have you do this. You wrote a book on it. Define for us, house hacking. What is it? Why should people consider it?
2:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, so house hacking is, in my opinion, the best real estate strategy. And it is basically you're buying a one to four unit place with a low percent down. Typically, that's three to 5% down. You have to live in that house or duplex, triplex, quad for at least a year. And you rent out the other parts of the house so that you can either offset your mortgage or live entirely for free, thereby eliminating what likely is your largest expense and getting a jumpstart on real estate investing.
2:35 Dave Meyer? Wow, that was very concise. I'm glad you wrote a book about it. That was way faster than I could have done that. But yeah, it's an amazing strategy. I don't have numbers for this, but I feel like the majority of investors I know, at least who are starting in maybe in their twenties or so, do get started investing. I did it for quite a few years. Craig sort of famously did it many different times to an extreme. And Austin, most recently, tried his hand at it as well. Craig, just tell me, like, there's a spectrum in house hacking of how much sacrifice you're making. I'm trying to think of the right way to say this. How like the right, how much sacrifice you have to make to balance the cost savings
3:19 Dave Meyer? and income generation and your own personal comfort. So like, can you just tell us a little bit about that spectrum?
3:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, so in the book, we talk about the comfort continuum, right? On the left side of that is comfort and on the right side of that is profit. And you kind of start, ideally, you start on the profit side. So you're going to have less comfort, more profit. For me, it was living behind a curtain in my living room while Airbnb-ing out my bedroom, right? And so, yes, highly profitable, very low comfort. And I don't know if this is intentional or unintentional, but as I moved to each successive house hack, my second one, I had my own bedroom, right? So now I rented by the room. So a little bit more comfort, but I still had a little bit of an uncomfortable situation living with, you know, people that I didn't know. Then I moved to the next one where I had a single family home with a mother-in-law suite downstairs.
4:07 Speaker 01 So I Airbnb'd the mother-in-law suite and I actually just rented out two of the extra rooms. So instead of having five roommates, I had two. And then I ended up getting to the place where I met my now wife. We moved in together and we occupied the entire Upstairs by ourself and we Airbnb the downstairs. And so, you know, I think there's levels of house hacking all the way up until having a mansion with a additional dwelling unit.
4:30 Dave Meyer? Yeah.
4:31 Speaker 01 Right? And even if it's not going to even come close, a thousand bucks a month is a thousand bucks a month. And you can meet some cool people and um yeah, it's it's it's pretty fun.
4:38 Dave Meyer? I'm glad you said that because I generally just think that people over estimate the discomfort piece of it like you. You went pretty far like doing the the curtain thing. I personally wouldn't do that, but I did it for years where I lived in sort of the smallest unit in a multi bedroom place and it was fine. Like I never really even saw it as all that different to like living in an apartment where you have neighbors. I happen to be the property manager and so had some more responsibilities, but it wasn't like some weird uncomfortable thing. So let's talk about markets now and move on. So Austin, tell us first, you know, this idea that you should pick a market for house hacking.
5:20 Dave Meyer? It's interesting, right? Because most people would assume that they're going to house hack where they live currently. Why would someone consider moving for a house hack?
5:30 Speaker 02 Yes, there are certain cities where the prices have risen so much in the past five years and with mortgage rates being where they are that house hacking just might simply be unfeasible if you don't have quite a bit of money to put down, especially coastal cities like Los Angeles, the Bay Area, maybe Seattle, maybe Portland. If you're just getting started, there are probably better markets to get started in today than maybe your own backyard.
5:54 Dave Meyer? Yeah, I think this is really important because there was a time in place, especially pre pandemic, when pretty much anywhere it works to to house hack. But that has shifted a little bit where the cost of ownership and rent have moved in such a big different direction that it doesn't make sense everywhere. Craig, is that sort of your experience? Or do you still think most cities work?
6:18 Speaker 01 I think every city works, honestly. It just is like the perspective and what you come to. So even if you're in a San Francisco or in LA and you can somehow afford a duplex, triplex or Quad, or you can afford a house that you can rent the rooms out to. My opinion is that the more expensive places, they're more expensive because more people want to live there. And if more people want to live there, co-living is probably a thing. Heck, some people share bedrooms in, in San Francisco and New York and all that kind of stuff. And so you kind of just have to get creative with it. That being said, Austin, I'm excited to hear about the, the data that you're sharing today and if we can agree or disagree with it.
6:54 Dave Meyer? All right. Well, let, let's get into the markets then. Austin, you've done the research. You've done a lot of research into other strategies and best markets and things to consider. But like, what about moving somewhere? You know, like that, that's the thing that is so hard. And I think is really personal to people is like, what kind of city that you would consider moving in. So when you pick these four markets that we're about to talk about, like, did you factor that in at all?
7:19 Speaker 02 I factored quality of life a little bit. That being said, to me, the most important thing was understanding the underlying fundamentals of the market first. Because again, there's, there's great people out there everywhere. There's great locations and there's going to be great stuff, no matter where you move to. So metrics matter to me first, and then quality of life and certain qualitative factors matter to me second.
7:41 Dave Meyer? Interesting. All right. I think we're going to disagree on that one.
7:45 Dave Meyer? I am going to, uh, we'll listen to the, the markets that you have to pitch and Craig and I will, will weigh in. So what is, what is market number one that you pick?
7:54 Speaker 02 The first market I pick, I'm going to talk about Fayetteville, uh, just because it's, it's closest to home. It was home, actually.
8:00 Dave Meyer? Yeah, that's the market you did house hack in.
8:03 Speaker 02 Yes, yes, yes. Uh, the median price there is below the national average and the median rent there is $1,600. But specifically the rent to price ratio is also above the median. The rent price ratio in Fayetteville is about 0.47%. Rent price ratio nationally across the board is about 0.35. So it's a little bit better. There's wage growth happening there. There's job growth happening there. So you have white collar jobs being added into the area. And the university there has been increasing their admissions year over year, which is, which is also pretty interesting. So you have this influx of people coming from, from all around the country. A lot of the people moving to this area are coming from the surrounding states, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Missouri.
8:46 Speaker 02 And they're either coming there for jobs, or a lot of people that I spoke to in Fayetteville are coming there because they thought Fayetteville was just a better place to live than where they're coming from.
8:55 Dave Meyer? See, quality of life.
8:56 Speaker 02 Quality of life. Yeah.
8:58 Speaker 01 Awesome. So I know next to nothing about this market other than the fact that I know Henry Washington lives somewhere around there. And I think it's like the capital for mountain biking. Is that correct?
9:07 Dave Meyer? Yeah, it's one of them. Yeah.
9:08 Speaker 01 Okay, so quality of life seems solid. I like the numbers. I'm kind of like laughing at myself because when I started investing, it was like the 1% rule everyone was talking about. Now like the national average is the 0.35% rule. But anyway, a question about Fayetteville. Is there any sort of geographical constraints? Do they have mountains or anything else that I need to be aware of?
9:27 Speaker 02 So there are a little bit of hills, but not as haly as Los Angeles, not as flat as Phoenix.
9:33 Dave Meyer? Tell us why you're thinking about that, Craig.
9:35 Speaker 01 Well, my biggest concern there is that if tons of people flood in there, I mean, they can just build houses. They can build houses pretty quick these days, right? And so just the supply and demand that's happening there. Dave and I talked about this the other day, but we both enjoy investing in places that have some sort of geographical constraint. Whether it's Denver with the mountains, I invest in Idaho. We have like a massive lake and there's Indian reservations all around and they're very hard to build on those. And we also have like two, I'm like a valley, right? So like, at some point, there's going to be nowhere to build and prices are going to go up. And so it sounds like Fayetteville is a great market in terms of, hey, you can probably cash flow here and your lifestyle is going to be pretty dang good because like I feel like colleges make places a little bit more lively.
10:15 Dave Meyer? Totally.
10:16 Speaker 01 I'm sure there's good food and good restaurants and good sports games to attend and like lots of entertainment. Biking capital of the world. I think it's going to take you a lot of units to achieve the same amount of wealth as you would in a market like Denver or somewhere else.
10:29 Speaker 02 I agree. And these next markets that I'm talking about, they're affordable for that very reason. There are pretty much no geographical constraints upon supply. So they haven't appreciated as quickly as other markets in the past five years. So you're absolutely right on that one. That is one trade off that you'll probably be making with these markets.
10:45 Dave Meyer? All right. Well, I like it. I think if I had to vote, which I'm going to make you vote, Craig, too, on whether I would house hack there, I would say yes on Northwest Arkansas. I've just heard Henry and Austin talk about it enough that it seems like a fun place. Seems like there's a lot of good stuff to do and the job growth is great. And me, my strategy has always been to continue to work a full-time job and use my income from my Job to invest in real estate and I like that Northwest Arkansas has jobs that I would be personally interested in that would be good. I'm not currently a mountain biker. I'm too injury prone for that sport, but I like outdoors stuff. And so I think there would be enough like outdoor recreation for me. So I would do it. Craig, yes or no?
11:27 Speaker 01 I would say yes as well for basically all the same reasons as as you Dave and then what I what I mentioned previously.
11:34 Dave Meyer? Okay. That was our first market. We are going to take a quick break before we hear about our other three markets, but first want to thank our sponsor for this week's episode of bigger news, which is the Fundrise flagship fund. Invest in private market real estate with the Fundrise flagship fund. You can learn more about it at fundrise.com/pockets. We'll be right back. Trying to get started in real estate investing or wholesaling, the hardest part is finding and talking to motivated sellers before everyone else does. That's why new investors are using PropStream. PropStream gives you access to over 160 million properties nationwide, plus simple AI tools that help you find better deals faster. Use pre-built lead lists like
12:19 Dave Meyer? pre-foreclosures, vacant homes and cash buyers, then let the PropStream intelligence assistant help you analyze properties and estimate opportunities in seconds. And now with PropStream Connect, you can do more than just find leads. You can actually contact them. You get free skip tracing, including LLC and corporate contacts. You can launch dialer campaigns, use click to dial with AI prompts, automate follow-up marketing and send postcards, all from one platform. No experience needed. You'll also get accurate comps, built-in calculators and step-by-step training through PropStream Academy, so you know exactly what to do next. Start your free seven-day trial and get 50 free leads at www.propstream.com/bp. That's
13:04 Dave Meyer? www.propstream.com/bp. I just booked a backpacking trip through Olympic National Park. Two nights out on the trail, no cell service, nothing to do but eat. And stare at mountains I'll never get tired of. That's the whole appeal. But while I'm off grid, my place doesn't need to sit empty. I can list my space on Airbnb and make a little extra income while I'm away. And with Airbnb's co-host network, I could partner with a vetted local co-host to help take care of the details. From guest communications to onsite support. So I can fully unplug and enjoy my time out in the backcountry.
13:45 Dave Meyer? If you've got upcoming travel plans, you can find a co-host at Airbnb.com/host. Here's why savvy real estate investors are obsessed with bonus depreciation. It lets you take that rental property or commercial building you own and depreciate most of the cost against your income legally, 100% IRS compliant. That's instant cash flow improvement. Cost Segregation Guys is the number one firm nationwide specializing in identifying these faster depreciating assets in your property. They've completed tens of thousands of studies across all 50 states from remote cabins to apartment complexes. So if you own investment property, this is a no brainer.
14:26 Dave Meyer? So visit costsegregationguys.com/bp for your free proposal and find out how much you could save this tax season. Finding a strong rental property usually takes time, research and calculated risk. Lennar Investor Marketplace helps simplify all of that. With a free account, investors can browse new construction homes built for rental potential alongside real-time data showing estimated returns, expenses and local market insights. It's all in one dashboard, making it easier to compare opportunities and move when the right deal shows up. Go to biggerpockets.com/lennar to create a free account and take a look. That's biggerpockets.com/lennar. Sign up for free and start exploring this smart investing opportunity today.
15:11 Dave Meyer? Please consult your own legal and tax advisors to help evaluate the risks of any real estate transaction. Lennar is an equal housing opportunity builder.
15:24 Dave Meyer? Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast. We are talking today about the best markets to house hack in. We got Austin Wolf, we got Craig Kirlop, talking about which markets we would personally choose to consider if we were to start over again and house hack. Austin pitched us Northwest Arkansas, a place where he did house hack. We're going to move on to his other three pitches. Austin, what is the second one you're going to pitch us on?
15:50 Speaker 02 I want to pitch you guys on Chattanooga, Tennessee.
15:52 Dave Meyer? Oh.
15:53 Speaker 02 As far as metrics goes, it's cheaper than Northwest Arkansas. The median price is about $300,000 and the median rent is only 100 bucks shy of Fayetteville, about $1,500. So the rent price ratio is actually better than Fayetteville at 0.5%. The median wage is a little bit below Fayetteville, but they actually have had pretty strong white collar job growth, certainly better than the national median, better than the other two markets I'm going to get into. A little less good than Fayetteville because they don't have such a strong return to office policy that's driving growth there. But regardless, what they do have is a citywide smart grid that has started to attract more startups into the area because it just provide really fast internet to residents
16:36 Speaker 02 of Chattanooga. This is something that the city has been investing in over the past decade. So I really like that about Chattanooga. I really like its focus on startups and I like the rent price ratio there. Now, what I don't like about it is probably the same thing that I don't like about Fayetteville is the weather. Chattanooga has those hot summers and potentially really cold winters.
16:56 Dave Meyer? All right. So like, what are the jobs there? You know, is this because of this smart grid? Is it really attracting that many tech jobs that you could earn a decent income in Chattanooga?
17:07 Speaker 02 The main jobs in Chattanooga are manufacturing and logistics. Their startup scene has started to grow, but it's nowhere near other markets that you've heard about.
17:16 Dave Meyer? All right. I don't know. What do you think, Craig?
17:18 Speaker 01 How close is Chattanooga to like Nashville?
17:21 Speaker 02 So Chattanooga is a two hour and 10 minute drive away from Nashville.
17:26 Dave Meyer? Too far.
17:26 Speaker 01 Too far.
17:27 Speaker 02 And it is about two hours and 10 minutes away from Atlanta.
17:32 Dave Meyer? Okay.
17:32 Speaker 02 So you're kind of in that middle ground. You know Chattanooga, I have like a soft spot in my heart for it because I feel like there's some country songs that sing of it. But I really enjoy like investing for cash flow and appreciation. And there it just doesn't, it doesn't feel like I'm going to get much of that. That being said, if you live in Chattanooga, I don't think there's a single market that I would totally say no to house hack in. Like I would house hack in LA and I would house hack in Chattanooga. But would I move from where I'm at right now to go house hack in Chattanooga? Probably not.
18:00 Dave Meyer? Yeah, I'm on the same boat. I think if you live in Chattanooga, the fundamentals sound great to house hack. You're probably going to really reduce your cost of living. You're probably going to make a lot of money. To me, I think there's two things that I don't like about it. Craig sort of alluded to it with asking where Nashville was, but I think you just need a bigger economic engine for me to feel comfortable with it. Northwest Arkansas Walmart is an economic engine all by itself. It's basically the equivalent to like a whole state worth of economic power. There's other companies in Northwest Arkansas that I really like. Chattanooga might have some stuff. I'm skeptical that like fast internet is like enough to draw people like they need a talent pool. You know, you need a lot more than that.
18:41 Dave Meyer? And so, yeah, it might attract local businesses to move from another city in Tennessee to Chattanooga. But I, I, I'm skeptical that you're going to see like major corporate relocations there. I can't name a single company that's headquartered out of there. So for me, it's just not a place I would uproot my life for, but it does sound like some of the metrics are pretty solid. All right. So we got two no's. Sorry, Austin.
19:07 Speaker 02 Darn it.
19:09 Dave Meyer? All right. What's the third one?
19:10 Speaker 02 All right. Third, uh, let's talk about Charlotte. North Carolina, listeners have probably heard it before. I don't know if listeners think that it's, it's expensive, but it's still less than the, the median price. The median price in Charlotte is about 370,000. It's about 30,000 more than Fayetteville, but the median rent is also a little bit higher as well, about 1,700. And so that rent price ratio is still greater than the national median at 0.47%. It also has the highest median wage out of these group of cities because they just have so many great jobs, finance jobs. Tech jobs, more white collar jobs coming in to support this finance hub that Charlotte is. So as far as underlying metrics goes, I actually like Charlotte the most. I also think it's most poised for growth.
19:53 Speaker 02 If people have been listening to me before, I've been unable to stop talking about North Carolina and how they're reducing their corporate income tax down to zero by 2030, which should definitely attract more finance jobs to the area. So I'm actually really excited about the underlying fundamentals of Charlotte. And the fact that the median price is still lower than the national median makes me very happy.
20:11 Dave Meyer? Yeah, I mean, I love, I love Charlotte personally as a, as a market. I think this has pretty much everything I would look for. One, it's big enough of a city where I think there's going to be fun stuff to do. You guys know, I really like eating in North Carolina. It's got some good food, so I'm interested in that. I think North Carolina has a good climate and just this strong foundation of finance and insurance. Like that is just a really good, solid economic engine. You know, those things do go through cycles, but they're not as recession prone to things like tech. As we're seeing, you know, these are good, solid, high paying jobs. And like Austin said, there's still going to be upward growth for prices because it's still so low.
20:55 Dave Meyer? I mean, you look at other areas where there's such a strong economic base, like places on the West Coast or the Northeast, the price point for homes are double this. So I think you, you see a lot of strong fundamentals at a more affordable price point. The other thing I really like is that they have a great higher education system in North Carolina, and that's going to provide really good talent pool for the whole state. So employers, I think, are going to be incentivized to go to North Carolina. Austin's done some great work talking about the tax environment there. That's really good. I just think the job growth and population growth in North Carolina is going to be excellent. Charlotte, I have some friends who live there. People say it's a great place to live. So I, I think it's, uh, it's got everything I would look for. If I were moving somewhere, like I would legit consider Charlotte.
21:40 Speaker 02 You know, there's a lot of people that live over on the East Coast and Charlotte feels like a pretty good, hey, it's a quick one hour flight. We can still kind of get back and see family pretty easily. And you, they've got a lot of population kind of all kind of.
21:52 Speaker 01 Coming to right in the middle there. Charlotte, I feel like is pretty insulated from natural disasters. They get a little bit of the remnants of a hurricane, but they're not going to get a ton of snow. They're not going to get a whole ton of rain. I have to imagine the Smokies aren't crazy far away from there. So you've got some good mountains to see. And I don't know, I'm sure everybody that is listening to this podcast has been through the Charlotte Airport. And so it's definitely a place where a lot of people go to, and to be able to fly direct almost everywhere is also a very awesome thing to do. So I would say, yeah, Charlotte would for sure be something.
22:24 Dave Meyer? I'm so glad you brought that up, Craig, because having a good airport is like so important to me on a personal level, just because I like to travel. I travel for work and Charlotte has a great airport. Like, I don't even know where Chattanooga would fly to. So I do think it's super important. I also like the fact personally that you are driving distance to like a lot of other attractions. Like, I don't know, it's, I think it's a far drive to the coast, but you can reasonably do it. Like you said, the Smokies aren't that far. A lot of fun stuff in Virginia, there's stuff to do. So like, I like the idea of being able to do road trips. Like personally, if I was moving somewhere, this would have the right blend of fun nearby, great jobs, lot of fundamentals. All right, Austin, you're back on track. All right. So we've heard our first
23:09 Dave Meyer? three markets, which are Northwest Arkansas, Chattanooga, and Charlotte. We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, we'll hear Austin's fourth market. And we're going to talk to Craig a little bit about tactically, if you wanted to go ahead and move for real estate, move for house hacking, how to actually pull that off. We'll be right back.
23:29 Dave Meyer? For my wife's birthday, I wanted to make her a new website for her landscape design business. So I researched a lot of different options. I tried out a couple, but honestly, it was really overwhelming. It was pretty time consuming and still, the site wasn't coming out the way I wanted it to. Then I tried Hostinger and everything was super simple. I asked Hostinger's AI to build a clean site for her business and it had a working version up in minutes. No coding or designer needed. Plus, its AI agent helps with SEO, website copy, And email marketing after launch. You get domain, website, email, all in one account. And right now you can get Black Friday and Cyber Monday pricing through December 14th.
24:14 Dave Meyer? So snag Hosting Your Services at their lowest prices before the sale ends. Create your website today for just $1.99. Go to hosting.com/realestate and use code REALESTATE for an additional 10% off Black Friday and Cyber Monday pricing.
24:29 Henry Washington? Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Ford ability. And it all starts with a great deal from your local Toyota dealer. Make a smart buy on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or get a Corolla sedan packed with the latest features, advanced tech, and head-turning style. Take a test drive in two of Toyota's most popular SUVs, the spacious, family-friendly Grand Highlander and adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid and plug-in hybrid models available across the lineup, plus efficient all-electrics like the BZ, BZ Woodland, and all-wheel-drive CHR, you can drive your way and skip the pump. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with legendary resale value built on a reputation for quality and reliability.
25:14 Henry Washington? So when it's time for your next Toyota, you could trade in for more from a great deal today to a great value tomorrow. A Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places. BiggerPockets Real Estate is brought to you by Ma'ad. Ma'ad prescribes a once-or-twice-daily modophonal drink that can keep you energized, focused, and alert throughout the day. Here's the mechanism. Energy drinks with caffeine temporarily block eudinecine, the chemical that makes you tired. It builds up, and when the caffeine wears off, it all crashes down on you at once. Modafinil works differently. It engages multiple pathways in your brain, dopamine, norepinephrine, histamine, and orexin
25:56 Henry Washington? to achieve steady energy and alertness for 10 to 12 hours. Modafinil was invented in the 1970s, and since it's been used in the highest performers on the planet, soldiers, pilots, and astronauts aboard the space station use modafinil in high-stakes situations. For full concentration and alertness are paramount. It's now available at mod.com to qualifying patients. Visit mod.com, that's M O D dot com for free consultation and get 10% off your first order plus free shipping with promo code B P R E. That's promo code B P R E at mod.com. See their website for important safety information and we thank mod for sponsoring the pod.
26:37 Dave Meyer? Investing in real estate has always been smart, but it hasn't always been simple. Now it's both, thanks to the Fundrise flagship fund. The Fundrise flagship fund launched more than five years ago with a mission of delivering low fee access to blue chip private market real estate. Today, the Fundrise flagship fund has grown to manage more than a billion dollars of real estate on behalf of hundreds of thousands of investors, making it one of the largest funds of its kind. For those who believe real estate has an important role to play in their portfolio strategy, the Fundrise flagship fund has positioned itself as both a simple and a smart option. Whether you're starting with $10 or $10,000, the Fundrise flagship fund makes adding
27:22 Dave Meyer? real estate's unique potential for both passive income and consistent growth. Just visit fundrise.com/pockets to make your first investment today. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the Fundrise flagship fund before investing. This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at fundrise.com/flagship. This is a paid advertisement. I just booked a ski trip to Park City and I've already got the whole thing planned out. Five days, first tracks every morning before the crowds show up, my knees reminding me I'm not 25 anymore by the second run, and an embarrassing number of overpriced burritos at the lodge. I don't even care. This is the trip I look forward to all year.
28:07 Dave Meyer? But here's the part I actually appreciate. The practical side of my brain kicking in is that my place doesn't have to just sit there empty the whole time I'm away. I can list my space on Airbnb and bring in a little extra income while I'm Out getting humbled on a mountain and with the co-host network, I'm not the one handling all of it. You can partner with a vetted local co-host who can create your listing, manage reservations, message guests, and even handle the styling. So I get to fully focus on my trip and my place is still working for me the whole time. Find a co-host at airbnb.com/host.
28:48 Dave Meyer? Everyone, welcome back to the BiggerPockets Podcast. We're talking house hacking and Austin, it is time for you to tell us the fourth market you recommend for house hacking. So far, Craig and I like two of yours. We like Northwest Arkansas. We like Charlotte. We're not so excited about Chattanooga. Let's see, are you gonna go 50/50? Let's see if you can go three for four. What's the fourth market?
29:09 Speaker 02 Oh, man, this one is probably my favorite market to talk about is Indianapolis. This one's a sleeper market that not too many people are talking about. So Indianapolis, let me just pitch you on why I think it's great. Number one, the median price there is 275,000. That is the cheapest one I've talked about so far. The median rent is about 1,500. So that rent price ratio is 0.54%. Definitely higher than all the other markets I've talked about today. It's continued to grow in jobs even more so than Columbus, Ohio, or Cincinnati, or other surrounding Midwest metros. In fact, as far as Midwest metros goes, it is my favorite just because of job growth alone. It's also has the same affordability as many metros in the Midwest.
29:53 Speaker 02 Indiana is also a very business-friendly state as opposed to Illinois. And Indianapolis itself is a very pharma-friendly place. They manufacture medical equipment. They have Eli Lilly there, which is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. So they have a lot of bio jobs as well as manufacturing jobs there, which I really like. And again, they have a lot of finance jobs that are being added into the area. There is one sector that has actually seen decline, and that is what the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls information jobs. So basically, software developers. That actually has been declining over the past 10 years. Every other area has seen an increase. So tech jobs are more or less leaving. The area, every other kind of job has been entering into the area.
30:35 Speaker 02 So that's, that is something to keep in mind. Your appreciation isn't going to be as, as much in Indianapolis, because it is flat as far as the eye can see. There is, there's no restrictions as far as building goes. And again, that's why it's so affordable. So that is one thing to keep in mind. It's a very big sports town. So if you're into sports, you might like Indianapolis if you don't hate the teams there. As far as actual housing stock goes, a lot of the multifamily housing stock in the inner city area is very old. And so there are a lot of opportunities to do, maybe live in flips or, or rehabs of, of this housing stock. So that's another thing that I would actually consider a pro of this market is, there's a lot of opportunity to get your hands dirty
31:16 Speaker 02 and really do some value adds. So I, I'll stop talking. Maybe I convinced you enough. I don't know. We'll see. This might be 50 50 for you guys.
31:23 Dave Meyer? All right, Craig, what do you got? What do you think about Indy?
31:25 Speaker 01 Indy sounds like a great city. And I think, again, if you live there, it's a, it's a good place and you should house hack there. I honestly might even invest in like a multifamily property there. I feel like if, if my strategy and my, my thesis was a cash flow play. But again, like I really like the markets where you can get cash flow and appreciation. And so I would probably say no to Indianapolis.
31:46 Dave Meyer? I'm torn on Indianapolis, honestly, because I would invest there as a long-term rental investor. Like I would consider right now, buying a duplex. I think value add is a really good opportunity there. I don't know if I'd personally live there, just to be candid, because you just told me that tech jobs are declining, which I think is okay from a fundamental standpoint. It's just what I've always worked in. And to me, like, the reason I moved to Denver and I loved Denver in 2009 was like, you could get tech jobs. And at that point, Denver was still relatively cheap. And to me, that was like the dream, right? Like you can live somewhere where it's not super expensive, but you can get a nice, like high paying job.
32:29 Dave Meyer? And I don't know if I'd be able to do that in Indianapolis, but I think for people who are in financial services, because I know that they have pretty good jobs there. If you're in healthcare, I think I would, I would definitely consider Indianapolis. Cause I think Austin's right, that just like long-term fundamentals of Indianapolis are really good. If it's the kind of lifestyle that you would like there.
32:50 Speaker 01 Do you guys know anybody that's moved to Indianapolis? Like, honest question.
32:53 Dave Meyer? A couple of coworkers that have bigger pockets live there.
32:55 Speaker 01 Oh, okay. But they didn't move there.
32:57 Dave Meyer? Yeah.
32:58 Speaker 01 They were just born there. I don't know. I feel like there's just so few, like you hear people moving to cities, right? Fayetteville, Charlotte, not Chattanooga.
33:05 Dave Meyer? Yeah, it's not passing your sniff desk.
33:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. And this is very much what I do is sniff tests.
33:09 Dave Meyer? All right. Well, Austin, I think we're going to give you, let's give you a, Craig and I are not quite 50/50 because I'm almost there in Indianapolis. We'll give you 60 out of 100.
33:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, all right.
33:22 Dave Meyer? But these are great markets. Again, like Craig and I are basing some on our personal strategy. Austin's talking about his personal strategy. The goal here is to help you all understand some of the metrics and the way that we think about these things. So you can do similar analysis for yourself. Craig, I just want to spend a few minutes. We don't have too much time, but I do want to just ask you, you know, what are like two or three steps if you were going to consider moving for real estate? And I think it's worthwhile. If you, you know, people move for jobs all the time. If you want to move for real estate to optimize for your real estate investing career, what are like the two or three first things that people should do?
33:57 Speaker 01 I would say, you know, number one step is you're going to want to talk to an investor friendly agent in your market that invests in that market, that helps house hackers in your market. And that can basically guide you into what strategies work best. Because as you saw today, what's going to work in Fayetteville is not going to necessarily work in Charlotte. And you may not know that if you're not, if you've never been to the market before. Number two, I think you gotta go visit, like,
34:21 Dave Meyer? Yeah.
34:21 Speaker 01 go visit and check out the city and make sure you like the city as well as your employer. I mean, I guess I'm just saying what I did because I attended, it did work out for Denver for me. So yeah.
34:30 Dave Meyer? Yeah. All right. Great. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Hopefully this is all helpful for you. If you want more resources on how to house hack or how to actually pull this off, Craig gave us a brief overview, but there's tons of information on biggerpockets.com about house hacking. Craig's written an entire book about it that we'll link to below, but highly recommend the strategy for anyone who's considering getting into investing. All three of us have done it. Many, many, many of the real estate investors who I am friends with and know and who are successful started with this way. And so I know it sounds to some people like it's crazy to like move your life for real estate, but people move for jobs. People move for a lot of different things. And if you want to prioritize real estate, which teach their own, but if you want to prioritize it, considering a market that's
35:12 Dave Meyer? going to be, help you set you up for long-term success in real estate, this could be an option for you. So Craig, thanks for being here, man.
35:20 Speaker 01 Thanks for having me as always, man.
35:22 Dave Meyer? And Austin, thank you for joining us.
35:24 Speaker 02 Thank you.
35:25 Dave Meyer? And thank you all for listening. We'll see you soon for another episode of the Bigger Pockets Podcast in just a couple of days. If you know someone who's been trying to get into real estate, thinking about it, doesn't know how to do it, and you think they might benefit from this, make sure to share this episode with someone who you think would be a good house hacker. Thanks again. We'll see you soon.
35:45 Speaker 04 Progressive's Accident Response can contact emergency services if you're in a major accident. The only thing worse than someone you love being in an accident is not being able to help them. So Progressive is here to help when you can't. So get peace of mind knowing your loved ones are protected with Progressive's Accident Response. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Limited availability in California. Driver is responsible for emergency and towing charges not covered by the policy. Coverage subject to policy, terms, and conditions.
Previous How to (Legally) Reduce Taxes with Real Estate + Crucial New Trump Tax Plans Next The Repeatable “Stack” Method to Buy Rentals Faster (and with Less Money) Page updated November 4, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
