Guide to House Hacking in Fort Collins, Colorado

Are you interested in Fort Collins house hacking?

In this post, we’re going to give you all the information you need to do it. We’ll look at whether Fort Collins is in a landlord or tenant-friendly state, the six demographic data points we use to analyze a market, and the house hacking strategies that might work well in a market.


Fort Collins: Landlord or Tenant Friendly?

From the state level, Colorado is more on the landlord-friendly side of the scale than tenant-friendly. You can see where Colorado falls on the graph here.

However, Fort Collins specifically, is a bit more tenant-friendly than other parts of the state of Colorado, and even other parts of the United States.

When house hacking, given that you will have tenants, it is often worth considering whether your location is landlord or tenant-friendly. In this case, I don’t think the city, or Colorado as a whole, is too tenant-friendly for me to personally consider house hacking here.

However, take some time to consider this for your own risk tolerance and determine if Fort Collins house hacking is right for you.


Demographic Data Analysis

The 6 demographic data points that we’ve learned to use when analyzing a market are population growth, income growth, property value growth, crime level, crime change, and job growth.

This was taught to us by Neal Bawa at Grocapitus and MultifamilyU.

When it comes to these six metrics, this is how Fort Collins compares to our benchmarks:

Data PointBenchmark (since 2000)Fort Collins
Population Growth20%44%
Income Growth30%59%
Property Value Growth40%162%
Crime Level< 500159.4
Crime Change0% or declining-4.3%
Job Growth1%4.18%

Overall, a Fort Collins house hack looks quite good based on the 6 metrics above that we analyze. Not one of the metrics misses our benchmarks.


Strategies for Fort Collins House Hacking

Fort Collins has many different types of properties. These property types include single-family homes and multifamily properties. Also, since Fort Collins is of decent size, there are some businesses and vacation travelers.

This means that you can utilize nearly any of the house hacking strategies. These strategies include rent-by-the-room when house hacking a single-family home, rent out additional units in a multifamily property, or even utilizing Airbnb.

The Airbnb strategy may be a little difficult, as Fort Collins isn’t a major vacation destination, but the city is big enough that it can still be done.

Overall, Fort Collins is a great city. If you’re moving to the area, or you already live in the area and you’re just doing research, you now know a house hack Fort Collins could be a great option.

If you’re interested in Fort Collins house hacking, be sure to check out our free house hacking calculator to analyze all your potential deals. And, if you’re interested in learning more about house hacking, check out our book The Everything Guide to House Hacking.

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Analyzed by: Robert Leonard
I am the founder of Everything House Hacking and a real estate investor. I house hacked my way to financial freedom. My goal is to help you learn my tactics so you can house hack your way to freedom.

Learn more here.