The Library: Metro Reports and the Foothold Score

Research and city data

Every city page and every dataset, in one place

City-by-city house hacking numbers built from real listings, the Foothold Index ranking, and the open data behind both. Every figure is published with the assumptions and sources behind it.

217house hacking city pages

83metros screened for the Foothold Index

11clear every test for a first-time buyer

46,746owner-occupant 2-4 unit purchases in 2025 (HMDA)

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Each page screens the two-to-four-unit listings on the market and prints the prices, the rents, the monthly cost, the income a lender wants, FHA limits and the down payment help the state offers. The 83 Foothold Index metros carry a rank; newer pages are screened on the same checks and say so at the top.

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Original research and open data

Built from public sources, published in full with the methodology, and free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.

The Foothold Index83 metros screened on whether a first-time buyer can own a small multifamily for less than renting, and the 11 that clear every test, ranked. Own for less than you rentThe metros where living in one unit and renting the rest leaves you ahead of renting each month. Down payment assistance that allows a duplexPrograms checked against their own documents for two-to-four-unit eligibility. The Duplex Buyers Atlas, 2018 to 2025Who buys a two-to-four-unit home to live in, from FFIEC HMDA data: 46,746 of them in 2025. House hacking statisticsFirst-time buyer share, renter cost burden and current rates, each with its source. Open data downloadsThe datasets themselves, with a citation and DOI. Charts you can republishFree to embed with attribution. MethodologyThe exact filters, exclusions and suppression rules, so anyone can reproduce the Atlas.

What the research says so far

The math works in far fewer places than the internet suggests. Of 83 metros screened, eleven clear every test, mostly in the older industrial Midwest and upstate New York, where two-to-four-unit housing was built at scale a century ago.

Failing is not one problem. In California the failure is price. Across Florida it is insurance, at $11,000 to $20,000 a year on a duplex. In Austin and San Antonio, rents fell over the last three years.

Down payment assistance moves fastest. Coverage can go from full to nothing when a program runs out of money, and most programs exclude anything above one unit.

Everything is traceable. The Foothold Index opens each metro to show its source inputs, the scale each is scored against, and the arithmetic behind the total.

Affordability tables by price, income and state

Reference pages built from the same dataset: the income a house price needs, the price a salary supports, and the first-time buyer programs in each state the dataset covers.

Income needed for a house, by price

$100k $125k $150k $175k $200k $225k $250k $275k $300k $325k $350k $375k $400k $425k $450k $475k $500k $550k $600k $650k $700k $750k $800k $850k $900k $950k $1M

What house you can afford, by salary

$40k $50k $60k $70k $80k $90k $100k $110k $120k $130k $140k $150k $160k $170k $180k $190k $200k