1. Forever 'starter' home
The house that we are currently living in was bought in 2009 and it was hubby's first home purchase, which would be considered a 'starter home' for many people because it's an older property (built in 1989), smaller in size (1,400 sq ft), and has a lower price range (~$150k). Obviously, this house is good enough for us to be considered a forever home considering we've been living in it for more than 10 years. We really do not need that much space for the two of us. Even with such 'small' house, we hardly use the living room and one of the bedrooms at all. We have a front and backyard and the only 'use' of them is to mow the grass every summer. One big advantage of our house is the location, it is conveniently located close to everything we need, 15 minutes from work, and we are in a good school district. Best of all, we pay less than $1,000 per month on our mortgage, property tax and insurance.

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2. Low maintenance and gradual improvements

One benefit of having a small house is that it requires less time to clean and maintain. We do all the house chores and yard work ourselves (well mainly hubby). ​Instead of dumping a huge chunk of money to renovate the house, we've slowly made changes and improvements to the house over the last 10 years to spread out the costs. Majority of our furniture are hand-me-downs or extra furniture from the family so we didn't spend much at all to furnish the house. Most importantly, our home is cozy and comfortable enough for what we need. We don't need our house to look like HGTV model homes.

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3. Rent a room / Get a roommate
When hubby was living by himself for the first 5 years, he rented out a room to a roommate since he wasn't using the extra space anyway. The rental income covered approximately half of the monthly mortgage payment, which reduced his monthly housing cost substantially. We stopped renting out the extra bedroom after I moved in for privacy reasons.


4. ​Long-term lease
I own a fully-furnished studio apartment in Malaysia that I bought before moving to the US. Since I'm not there to use it, we rented the unit under a long-term lease with my mom's help. The tenant pays enough in rent to cover the mortgage payments so I basically own the house for free. In fact, I've paid off the mortgage within 3 years thanks to the strong USD so all rental income are 100% income at this point.


5. Airbnb
My parents own the apartment next to mine and they were listing their unit on Airbnb for awhile. While my mom enjoyed being an Airbnb host and the income may be slightly higher than long-term lease, we decided not to list my unit on Airbnb because it was too much work for her.  Interestingly, my current tenant rented the apartment to list it on Airbnb. I consider it a win-win in my books because that means she will maintain and clean it frequently for the guests. 
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