# The Rent Hacker · We underwrite every 2–4 unit building on the market. Most of them fail. Buy one underwrite for $79, or take the pass.

> Buy one underwrite for $79, or take the pass and get every one that beats renting.

Canonical: https://therenthacker.com/
Source: The Rent Hacker (https://therenthacker.com/). License: RSL, attribution required — https://therenthacker.com/license.xml

---

# We underwrite every 2–4 unit building on the market. Most of them fail.

Buy one underwrite for $79, or take the pass and get every one that beats renting.

## I have a building in mind

Type an address and see what the assessor knows: legal units, the tax reset at your price, rent-control era. No charge, no email.

## Find me buildings

This week's board: every 2–4 unit listing in the region, run against renting and index funds on cautious numbers. Winners locked; the pass opens them.

[Show me this week's board](/board/)

You're signed in.

[Your board](/board/) [Manage account](/my/)

This week**394** buildings ran, **17** beat renting and index funds, **377** rejected. [See every one of them](/board/).

## What people use this for

One building, this week

$79

You are looking at one address and you want to know before you offer. A person checks the listing, the parcel's own tax bill and the rents, and you get the answer within one business day.

[See a finished underwrite →](/property/rh-mlpgfd/324-susie-way/ "324 Susie Way, South San Francisco, CA 94080")

[Underwrite one building — $79](/lookup/#underwrite)

Looking all season

$49/mo

Every Bay Area 2–4 unit that beats renting and index funds, the week it lists. Every page you open runs at your own rent, tax bracket, horizon and down payment. Cancel when you close.

[See what the pass opens →](/board/)

[Take the pass — $49/mo](/checkout/?tier=pass)

I already own one

Not built yet

What your building is worth and what you can raise the rent to, every year, on the same numbers we underwrite with.

No charge, and no date promised.

The method

## How a listing earns a spot.

1.  01
    
    ### Scan
    
    Scan every multi-family listing in the Bay Area.
    
2.  02
    
    ### Model
    
    Model cautious rents from nearby comps, and charge for vacancy, CapEx, management and taxes.
    
3.  03
    
    ### Benchmark
    
    Benchmark the same down payment in the S&P 500 over the same ten years.
    
4.  04
    
    ### Sort
    
    Sort by the ten-year difference in dollars, and publish the winners and the rejections together.
    

Read this before you pay

## Two minutes. Read both columns. If you’re in the right one, the doors are above.

### It’s for you if…

-   ✓ Your money is in VOO or a 4% HYSA. You want to know which Bay Area duplex actually beats it over 10 years.
-   ✓ You want cautious rents, a named BART line or zoning vote behind every growth claim, sourced numbers. Not a PDF that swapped "John" for "Sarah".
-   ✓ You’ll owner-occupy for two years. Maybe three. If the math beats the index on a real address.
-   ✓ You can handle a week where the answer is "rent and buy VOO."

### Skip it if…

-   ✗ You’re not shopping the Bay Area. We’re not adding Sacramento to keep you paying.
-   ✗ You want a deal delivered ready to sign. This is a research report, not a brokerage.
-   ✗ You can’t owner-occupy for at least a year. Without rented units offsetting your mortgage, the house-hack math stops beating the S&P 500.
-   ✗ You need guarantees. Some weeks nothing beats renting and index funds, and we say so on line one.

[The board is free and public.](/board/) [One address, underwritten by hand, is $79](/lookup/#underwrite) · [the pass is $49/mo](/checkout/?tier=pass).

Questions

## Things people ask before paying.

Why is the board free?

Because nobody trusts a paid answer they can't check. The board is public: every building we underwrote, every verdict, every rejection with its reason. What you pay for is one address underwritten by hand, or the pass that opens the winners the week they land.

Why only the Bay Area?

SF has the widest gap between "guru says buy" and the actual 10-year math. Adding Phoenix dilutes the test.

Is this investment advice?

No. We show the assumptions, the sensitivities, the math. You decide. Nothing in the report tells anyone to buy anything.

What if I hate it?

Cancel the pass in one click on your preferences page, and reply within 14 days of any charge to get it back. Nobody calls you.

Has the calculator ever told you to walk from a deal?

Yes. I almost bought a townhouse in Maryland — pre-approved, two weeks from signing. The math came back leaning S&P 500. I walked. [Full writeup](/halethorpe/).

Every building we ever published stays on [the track record](/track-record/), with what happened to it.