I see a lot of fellow millenials thinking that the only way to escape the poverty trap that is being chronically burdened by onerous rent payments is to "play t

I see a lot of fellow millenials thinking that the only way to escape the poverty trap that is being chronically burdened by onerous rent payments is to "play the game", i.e. to do all of the house hacking stuff to by MFUs, live-in-and-flip, or whatever the thing to do is. There is no doubt that this stuff can work. If you become a very savvy investor, you can start seeing net positive on your housing as an investment. However, what doesn't get written up is the horrible downsides of this, e.g. not being able to find tenants because of a market miscalculation and then being financially screwed for years to come, or having a crappy contractor try to fix your house only to have to deal with their faulty stuff for a year or more while getting another contractor to fix it. I decided that I don't want to become a "real estate guru" just to avoid paying rent, so I just found a small apartment that was well within my salary and leveraged my existing CS skillset to almost quadruple my compensation within about 3-4 years of studying my ass off and making the right career hops. I am still paying miniscule rent on a small place, but I spend almost no time in my apartment; I'm either at work, or climbing a mountain somewhere. Perhaps I "should" buy a house, but as there is a huge surplus of ADUs as everyone else is trying to house hack (i.e. supply is large!), I can spend a teensy tiny portion of my income "wasted" on rent while spending none of my time worrying about housing issues or avoiding financial ruin in a risky bet. Basically, this house hacking stuff is about leveraging your time to hopefully produce a monetary gain. You have to learn how to not get absolutely screwed over in some of the largest financial outflows you'll ever make in your life, and it's easy to get screwed when much larger fish (e.g. black rock) are way more savvy than you. This obviously doesn't apply if a 1br/1ba is not for you (e.g. you have a family) or you want to have a home for sentimental reasons. edit: Basically, what I'm trying to say is that there is a huge, life-altering downside to failing at the real estate game, but there is almost no downside to mastering a new, valuable skill that can lead towards a better job (and more pay).