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How to House Hack with Stessa

If you're an owner occupant and a landlord all at a single property, you're house hacking. Use "Splits" to allocate your expenses properly.

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If you live in one part of a property and rent out another, you’re officially house hacking! Whether you lease a bedroom, a basement apartment, or an entire unit, you’re combining personal residence and real estate investing into one. With Stessa, it’s easy to track both sides of the equation—as long as you allocate expenses properly using the Split feature.

What Is House Hacking?

House hacking means living in a property you also rent out. Common setups include:

  • Renting out a room or floor in your home

  • Living in one unit of a duplex, triplex, or fourplex

  • Leasing a garage studio or ADU while occupying the main residence

This setup provides unique financial benefits, but it also creates tax and accounting challenges—particularly when separating personal and investment use.

Talk to Your CPA First

Stessa does not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Since house hacking involves splitting expenses between personal and investment use, we strongly recommend speaking with a qualified CPA.

A CPA can help you:

  • Choose a fair and legal method for expense allocation

  • Understand IRS rules for mixed-use properties

  • Maximize your deductions while staying compliant

Set Up Your Rent Roll Properly

To track occupancy and unit counts accurately in Stessa:

Add Your Owner-Occupied Unit

  • Go to your Leases & Tenants page.

  • Add a new lease for your personal unit.

  • Set the Tenant Name to "Owner-Occupied" and the Monthly Rent to $0.01.

This ensures your occupancy metrics are correct without affecting your financials in any meaningful way.

Tip: A one-cent rent will auto-generate charges. You can ignore them or click "Add a Credit" to zero them out and mark the unit as "Current."

Allocate Expenses: Rental vs. Personal

Tracking house hack expenses correctly is key. Here’s how to handle it in Stessa:

Use the "Split" Feature

You’ll likely use Stessa’s Split tool often to divide expenses between investment and personal use.

  1. Go to your Transactions page.

  2. Find the expense that needs splitting (e.g., landscaping, property tax).

  3. Click the Split tool

  4. Allocate the appropriate percentage to:

    • Your rental unit(s)

    • Your owner-occupied unit

Examples:

  • Fully Investment Use: Appliance repair for a tenant unit → allocate 100% to that unit.

  • Shared Use: Property taxes, snow removal, landscaping → split based on the agreed percentage with your CPA.

Assign Income to the Right Units

  • Rental income should always be assigned to the relevant unit.

  • Do not associate any income with your owner-occupied unit.

Questions?

Please direct all accounting questions to your CPA!

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