When Margaret Skiff's landlord declined to renew her lease in 2025, she didn't go looking for another apartment. Instead, she bought a $575,000 duplex in Portland, Maine (1).

Skiff, now 27, put $57,500 down on the two-unit property. She moved into one unit and kept the long-term tenants already living downstairs, collecting $2,000 a month in rent against her $4,000 mortgage.

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Her effective housing cost was $2,000 a month, roughly what she'd been paying in rent previously/

"It was much more feasible for me to actually buy a multi-family home," she told CNBC’s Make It (2). "I'm able to live alone for right around the same price that I was paying in rent before."

She also spent about $15,000 on renovations, doing most of the work herself alongside her mother, and hiring out only the plumbing, electrical and drywall. She upgraded the bathroom for $3,500, and she’s currently saving for a full kitchen gut renovation.

As of January 2026, Skiff has almost $190,000 saved and invested across retirement, brokerage and savings accounts — and she's set her sights on a $500,000 net worth (3). Her combined 2025 income was about $151,000, split between a $113,000 salary as a senior experience analyst and roughly $38,000 from social media content creation on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

Her story is a near-perfect case study in house hacking: the strategy of buying a multi-unit property, living in one unit and renting out the rest to offset the mortgage.

Adults between the ages of 26 and 34 made up just 12% of recent home buyers, according to the National Association of Realtors (4). Skiff is part of a small but deliberately strategic subset doing it with a playbook that older homeowners would do well to study.

The core financial tenant here is straightforward. Rental income lowers your effective housing cost, which frees up cash to save and invest. In Skiff's case, that $2,000 monthly offset adds up to $24,000 a year — money that would otherwise be going purely toward her housing expenses.

American homeowners spend a median of 21.4% of their income on housing, according to U.S. Census Bureau data cited by AmeriSave (5). A rental offset that cuts that burden in half changes the entire savings equation, especially early in a career, when compounding has the most runway.

Skiff's $190,000 already invested illustrates that point sharply. At a conservative 7% annual return, that balance compounds to over $735,000 by the time she's 47 without adding another dollar. Starting this deliberately at 27 rather than 35 is the difference between financial security and financial freedom.

Skiff preserved equity by keeping renovation costs lean. At $15,000 total for significant cosmetic work across a duplex, she paid a fraction of what a contractor-only approach would have cost.

For homeowners who've been putting off upgrades, the numbers suggest they're far from alone. According to a This Old House survey of 2,000 homeowners, only 32% of baby boomers planned to carry out renovations in 2025, compared to 60% of millennials and 56% of Gen Z (6).

But deferring work doesn't make it disappear, and Skiff's YouTube-DIY approach shows it doesn't have to cost a fortune, either. Work that's realistically doable (painting, flooring, fixtures, landscaping, bathroom cosmetics) doesn't require a full contractor budget.

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The house hacking framework isn't limited to first-time buyers or Gen Z. Older homeowners who already own their homes are often sitting on the most powerful version of this strategy and haven't activated it.

A spare bedroom consistently rented to a roommate, a basement unit converted to a long-term rental or an accessory dwelling unit on an existing lot — all of these can "offset housing costs, cover the full mortgage or even net a profit," according to Redfin (7). For empty nesters in particular, unused square footage is a dormant income stream.

The other transferable piece from Skiff's playbook is goal architecture. She saved toward a specific number, tracked it and built her decisions around it by automating her 401(k) contributions from her first full-time job and banking every dollar of social media income without touching it until her down payment.

"Now being almost six years post-grad, it is so satisfying to look at my investment accounts," she told CNBC (8). "If I had started this at 25 versus at 21, I would not have this money today."

The key is that specificity. A $500,000 net worth target is different from a vague intention to "save more." It creates a benchmark against which every financial decision — whether to renovate, take on a roommate, or delay gratification — can be tested.

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CNBC (1, 2, 3, 8); National Association of Realtors (4); AmeriSave (5); This Old House (6); Redfin (7)

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.