Building your house hack stack is like playing chess. You don’t want to make a move today that will cause issues for loan numbers 2 or 3.

While this is not something to lose sleep over, there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Make sure you are tracking your collected rent in some capacity.
• Have signed lease agreements for all tenants.
• Be able to offset the mortgage (principal, interest, taxes, and insurance) of house hack #1 with rental income. In other words, rental income needs to cover the debt after moving out.

Pro tip: Show your lender your tax returns before they are filed. What you are writing off can play a big role in your ability to buy your next house hack the following year.