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First time homebuyer/landlord questions

TLDR; I make a good salary and want to relocate from Seattle to Austin, TX to buy/rent out a house. Looking for advice mainly on how to be smart about living in/renting out the same place and keep myself legally protected.

I am interested in buying a house soon as my primary residence and renting out the other rooms to help with the mortgage. I thought this sub would be a good place to ask for advice.

Some background: I'm a software engineer at a big tech company currently working and renting in Seattle. I have about $100K worth of cash and stocks with a pretty good compensation (six figure base salary plus RSUs and sign on bonuses for 2 years). Even with good comp, houses in Seattle seem completely unattainable. My boss is ok with me relocating to Austin, Texas and working remotely for the team since the company also has headquarters there. Housing is still expensive in Austin but it looks like there is still plenty of housing there in the 300-400K range which definitely seems a lot more doable than Seattle.

I have a few questions:

  1. Is Seattle really as bad as I think it is? I'm just browsing on Zillow, but there are way more options in Austin than Seattle as far as I can see. The closest houses I can find in the 300-400K range are in Tacoma, but I don't want to live there and have to drive an hour to work. I'm remote for now but we could be in the office again eventually. This is why my boss would want me to be in Austin if I relocate, so even while working for the team remotely I could go to the company office if needed.
  2. My plan is to buy a 2 or 3 bedroom house and rent out the unused bedrooms. How do you legally protect yourself as a landlord? The last thing I want is for a tenant to get hurt and sue me for everything I'm worth. Are umbrella insurance policies and requiring renter's insurance usually good enough? Or is it a good idea to create an LLC that could limit my liability even further?
  3. What steps do you take if a tenant is smoking inside the unit or damaging furniture? Sure you could keep the deposit, but what if they just keep smoking/damaging the unit and causing additional damage? Is that grounds for eviction? Could you sue the tenant if the damage is really, really bad?

I know that's a firehose of questions but I try to think of all the worst case scenarios before committing to something like this. Any advice/additional resources is greatly appreciated!

submitted by /u/fishychef
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/us6cub/first_time_homebuyerlandlord_questions/
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