House Hacking Calculator, House Hack Deal Analyzer for Duplex Triplex Fourplex, Owner Occupied Rental Spreadsheet, Google Sheets + Excel

Cash flow is the wrong question.

On a building you live in, cash flow is negative almost every time, because one unit pays no rent. You are the tenant. Every rental calculator on the internet will show you that number and it tells you nothing.

What you actually want to know is what living there costs you a month once the other tenants have paid, compared with the rent you pay now. That is the number this file leads with, and everything else supports it.

WHAT IT DOES

- Net cost to live: what the building costs you every month after the tenants' rent, next to what you pay in rent today
- Cash to close, with the seller credit capped at the limits the agencies actually allow
- Move-out mode: fully rented, with separate management, insurance and property tax figures for after you leave, because all three change
- Loan Compare: FHA, VA and conventional at 5%, 10% and 20% down, on the same property at the same rate
- A 10-year projection with loan paydown, rent growth, appreciation and equity, that stops charging you rent the year you move out
- Ten automatic checks on your own numbers

AND THE THING NOBODY ELSE HAS

A metro benchmark built from the 2025 HMDA public file: every 2 to 4 unit purchase loan in the country where the buyer said they would live in the property. 46,746 of them. Pick your metro and see your loan size, rate and down payment against what actually closed there last year, plus the FHA / VA / conventional mix and the down-payment spread. 282 metros are in the file, plus a separate row holding the loans that fall outside any metro area, and you can sort and filter the whole table yourself.

THE RULES THAT QUIETLY KILL DEALS

Three things most house hacking spreadsheets get wrong, all of them checked here:

- There is no 3% conventional on a 2 to 4 unit. The 97% loan-to-value product is single-unit only. Both agencies stop at 95% on 2 to 4 units, and that needs an automated approval. Fannie itself sets no minimum credit score once the automated system approves the file. The mortgage insurer usually does, commonly 680 to 700 on a 2 to 4 unit. Fall to manual underwriting and you drop to 85% on a duplex and 75% on a 3 or 4 unit.
- Conventional mortgage insurance does not cancel automatically at 78% on a 2 to 4 unit. The law that does that covers single-family homes. Here you have to request it at 70% loan-to-value, and otherwise it runs to the midpoint of the loan term, around year 15.
- FHA applies a self-sufficiency test to 3 and 4 unit loans. It takes the appraiser's market rent for all the units, including yours, subtracts the greater of the appraiser's vacancy and maintenance estimate or 25%, and what is left has to cover PITI. At most 75%, often less. This file runs the test with the appraiser's own figure and tells you if you fail it.

The Explainers tab also covers how much of the tenants' rent counts toward qualifying you, which is agency policy rather than lender preference, and the landlord experience rule that decides more first-time house hacks than the interest rate does. Fannie wants 12 months of documented property management experience before the rent counts as income. That test is Fannie only, and it is not new: it has applied since January 1, 2024. Freddie Mac and FHA do not require it on a home you will live in, which is why the same borrower gets three different answers, and why a first-timer with no landlord history should ask for Freddie's Loan Product Advisor over Fannie's Desktop Underwriter.

WHAT YOU GET

- Start-here PDF with one-click Google Sheets copy links
- Blank analyzer, ready for your first listing
- Filled-in sample: a Buffalo duplex at $259,900 on an FHA loan
- Both as .xlsx for Microsoft Excel as well

INSIDE

Start Here, Deal Inputs, The Answer, Loan Compare, Metro Benchmark, 10-Year Projection, Move-Out Mode, Explainers, Metro Data.

Run it on every listing. Copy the file per property or just retype Deal Inputs: two minutes a deal once you are set up.

IMPORTANT

This workbook is a calculator. It is not financial, investment, tax, legal, mortgage or real estate advice, and it is not a loan estimate, a pre-approval, an appraisal or an offer of credit. Van to Vault is not a lender, broker, agent, CPA, attorney or adviser, and buying or using this file does not create a professional relationship. Down-payment minimums, upfront fees and mortgage insurance rates differ by lender, credit score, loan size, property type and program, and they change; the presets are typical 2026 figures chosen so the comparison is consistent, not quotes for you. The metro figures are 2025 HMDA public data describing loans that were reported by lenders above the reporting threshold, where the applicant stated they would occupy the property. They are not a census of buyers, not a prediction and not an estimate of your approval odds. Every projection compounds assumptions you choose. Have a lender, an insurer, an inspector and a tax professional check the real numbers before you buy. Provided as is, without warranties of any kind.

Digital download. Nothing ships. For your personal use, please do not share, resell or redistribute the files.