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Free calculator that shows what buying a small duplex with 3.5% down and renting out the other unit would cost you per month — often less than renting. Built by someone who went from living in a van to house-hacking a duplex.
Hey Product Hunt,
Ten-ish years ago I was living in a van, in an attempt to escape high rent on the west coast. Today I own a duplex, live in one unit and my rent pays most of the housing bill. The road between those two points was a lot of work and sacrifice, but I wish I had connected the dots sooner in life because the math to get to homeowner was easier and the journey shorter than I had guessed.
So I built the calculator for anyone in a similar place: of little means but looking to make some moves and gain the financial freedom to do what you want in life. The tool is simple: you put in a property price, your local rents, and your down payment, and it shows your effective housing cost: mortgage (minus the rent the other unit brings in).
In a bunch of Midwest metros that number comes out lower than renting a one-bedroom. That number changed my life.
It's completely free. There's also a down-payment budget tool that gives you an actual target date, a rent-vs-buy-vs-house-hack comparison, and a free PDF roadmap if you want the whole path laid out, and plenty of other stuff (the site is early on, I'm adding new content every week)!
Two caveats, because this corner of the internet is full of gurus: house hacking means being a landlord who lives next to their tenant. It is not all that passive, yet. It's like a real side job, at times. And in expensive metros the math usually doesn't work; the calculator will tell you that instead of pretending.
Happy to answer anything about the numbers, the tools, or the van years.
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About Van to Vault House Hacking Calculator on Product Hunt
“See if a duplex could cost less than your rent”
Van to Vault House Hacking Calculator was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 0 upvotes and 1 comments, placing #41 on the daily leaderboard. Free calculator that shows what buying a small duplex with 3.5% down and renting out the other unit would cost you per month — often less than renting. Built by someone who went from living in a van to house-hacking a duplex.
Van to Vault House Hacking Calculator was featured in Home (170.1k followers), Fintech (47.3k followers) and Personal Finance (2.9k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 32.2k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Van to Vault House Hacking Calculator?
Van to Vault House Hacking Calculator was hunted by Stephan. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
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Stephan