What you actually keep each month house-hacking a Rochester two-, three- or four-unit, at three real prices, across rates and rents, with the state, regional and city assistance programs that fund it and the income lines that decide which one you get. September 2026 edition, 22 pages, PDF.
The free Rochester page on my site gives you one number: what the median surviving deal keeps at today's rate. This report is what you need when you are standing in a listing on Parsells Avenue at $150,000 wondering whether it is the good kind of Rochester deal or the bad kind.
Inside: the same building priced line by line at the entry ($160,000), median ($234,900) and upper-quartile ($310,000) asking price from the 87 listings that survived the Foothold screen, priced both as a duplex and as a triplex, because 33 of the 87 survivors have three or four units and that changes the answer. At the entry price the building clears $655 a month as a plain duplex, before you add a third unit. The median is roughly break-even and the upper quartile loses money, and the report says so on the same page as the good news. A rate-by-price grid (5.50% to 7.50%) so the day you get a lender quote you read your own answer. Rent bands, and the ZIP table of where the surviving listings actually sit, where 21 of the 87 are in a single ZIP. The assistance walkthrough with the income lines written out: SONYMA DPAL and the 60%-of-area-median line that separates $15,000 from $30,000, the FHLBNY grant that counts your tenant's rent against you, and Rochester's own HPAP at $8,000 for a one- to four-family, which is the most generous city program of the three New York metros in this series.
And one thing no listing and no other report will tell you. Rochester is one of the 25 communities of concern under New York's Lead Rental Registry law, Monroe County has delegated enforcement to the City, and in 2026 the City removed the full exemption that owner-occupied two-unit buildings used to get from the renewable Certificate of Occupancy. Only the interior of your own unit is exempt now. Impacted owners must hold an active Certificate of Occupancy by 1 October 2026. Section 7 works out exactly which buildings that catches, why the address decides it, and what it does to the duplex-versus-triplex question.
A worked example against my own $470,000 duplex, a 90-day checklist, the formula printed once so you can rebuild it, and 29 dated sources.
$29, flat. The free Rochester page and every calculator on the site stay free either way; the $29 covers the data refresh. Buyers of this edition get the December 2026 data edition at no charge. If it does not give you a clearer read on Rochester than the free page did, reply within 30 days for a full refund.
Education, not financial advice. This is arithmetic on public data about a city, not a recommendation to buy any building or use any loan or program, and it knows nothing about your income, credit, debts or tax situation. Program rules and rates change without notice; every figure carries the date it was read. Talk to a SONYMA-participating lender, a HUD-approved housing counselor and a tax preparer before you act. Van to Vault is not a lender, broker, agent or advisor and receives no compensation from any lender or program named in the report.