Owner Occupied  Duplex  

Owner occupying a duplex

The best of both worlds 

You get rental income and taxes breaks 

I bought mine in 2018

It is ranch side by side built in the late 1950’s its in a suburban area in eastern Iowa.

Yearly cost 

property taxes

 are about $3,000 a year. Half of that can be written off since it's a rental unit so my net property taxes are $1500 I use the parks and the library more than that amount so I am getting good value there :)   $250 a month 

Property insurance  

is  Property insurance $1500 a year so $740 can be written off 

Internet  

$900 a year  

a month $73.90 paperless and it pulls on the 18th of each month  I would say the whole amount can be because I can use the internet off of my phone 

Phone 

$324 a year

A month $27 October of each year  I write this number off and pay $30 a year for a redpocket backup phone 

Trash removal  

 $200 a year

Water Gas and power bill are all bills I have to for the place.

misc. cost 

Pest control $80

Arborist $100 every other year or $50

City license for rental $40

landlord association $100 a year

$270 / 12 =  $22.50

Economics 

The price I paid for this property is about what a two bedroom one bath home would cost give or take a few thousand dollars. It's a hyper competitive market it took me over 5 years to get this deal in the town that I live in there's under three dozen duplexes so it's a very rare commodity. 

living a lower middle class neighborhood 

I don't mind it I get along well with people in the neighborhood at least a majority of them but it is a poor place to be some of the rentals go for $400 for a two-bedroom apartment so my property is on the high end but I still look more like a lower middle class person then some rich guy swimming it. I also like that it doesn't push you to keep up with the Joneses a lot of people have this competitive consumerism that just sucks their money dry and I don't feel that I compete with anybody in the neighborhood and I don't want them to try to compete with me we just leave each other alone and don't focus on the material things as much. The neighborhood I grew up was very upper middle class the house were custom built people would redo their kitchens every few years their carpet their paint their you name it it was already done I don't want to live in that type of environment of waste and excess.

Lower your Taxes 

Taxes you don't pay 

FICA so you don't pay social security tax on it so you get to keep more of your money since it's considered a passive income and taxed at a lower rate than earned income.

There's a number of other cost to add in the vacancy rate. Nationally. It looks like it's 6.8% in Iowa. It's around 8.6

 repair cost etc

 Keep a few grand as as reserve I would say as low as two grand. Maybe 5k things can get pretty expensive pretty quick though with owning property.

https://www.fortunebuilders.com/rental-property-investment/

https://www.kiavi.com/blog/rental-property-expenses

Links 

https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/side-gigs/should-you-buy-a-duplex/