As many younger people look to expand their world out of the family house into an apartment or house I have some advice.

I spent the year after college using the skills I had picked up form my father. We had a large ranch house with a full basement. So I built and apartment in the bsement. (Yes, I was the guy living in the basement at home) I made a 2 bedroom, kitchen, living room and full bath. I couldn't find a job at the time and couldn't afford to live elsewhere but it taught me an important lesson. The money I saved by paying a small rent to my parents once I got a job allowed me to save enough money in a short amount of time to look for a place of my own. 

At first I thought of owning my own house and making the rules ( naked thursdays) but then looked at the amount of money it takes to own a house, pay utilities, insurance, repairs, mowing the lawn, shoveling the snow.....

It would be more then I was making but decide I couldn't be that 30 year old living in my parents basement. Many friends shared apartments and had way to many issues with roommates for me to consider that. 

So I looked into house hacking. A term I found on the biggerpockets website. I bought a duplex (two town houses connected together). I was going to live in one and rent out the other to pay my mortage. That made the cost of living on my own within reach. Having someone else pay enough rent to cover my mortage and not have roommates was great. Since I owned the building I was also building value each month using someone elses money. I have been lucky with tenants and have had great success.

Today my father passed and I took over the family house, where my mom now lives with me, she is 80 and has health issues. The old basement apartment is rented to a friend of mine (dangerous concept, but working so far) Clear contract or lease and signed set of rules. That reant pays my utilities. So with both duplexed rents covering all my bills and extra money from basement rent I was able to buy additional rental properties. I now have 5 properties fully rented (lower the market) but I have long term renters in blue collar houses.

There is a ton of free material out there on doing this, don't pay a guru $5,000-20,000 for what the internet provided for free.

I highly recommend house hacking and building wealth other then bitcoin speculation. But you can afford to play and risk more with a stable income from rentals.

Sites to look at

biggerpockets.com

stessa.com ( to help mange expenses and track them for taxes) all free