Ways to monetize you primary residence.

[Account Closed]

Recently I bought my first house and I had a spare bedroom. So I debated on renting the room out since I live close to a local college. I though it would be easy to rent out a small bedroom to one of the students. But I released that I properly wouldn't get that much in rent. So I decided against it knowing I value my privacy more than small amount of rent I would get. But while on craigslist one day I found adds for hosting foreign high school students. Now if you live in a large city like I do there are agencies that are looking for places that can host foreign students. Some don't pay but the ones that do pay often pay well. The one I went with pays double what I thought I could rent the room out for. They even pay so well it was over the amount I pay monthly for my mortgage. So this has been helping me put some equity into my primary residence and free more of my income to invest in real estate. Most of the agencies I looked at that pay only required you to prepare and pay for their food which is three meals on weekends and two on weekdays. The best part of this is the payments are reimbursements so they are tax free. The food that I buy for my foreign student only came to about $100 a month leaving me a healthy profit. Also you can get a tax credit for an extra $50 dollars a month to reimburse you for the expenses of hosting. The company I worked with was desperate for host parents. You can take as many students as you want as long as you have the spare bedroom for them. Another catch is you have to live with them this is so the students can be immersed in English so they can better learn it. Now most of these students are from the major Asian countries like South Korea and China. My student is Chinese. It is a good way to pay part or all of your mortgage and the students tend to keep to themselves. It's a win win. You will get above average rent for any spare bedrooms, the money is tax free, and it's a good bit of life experience sharing your home and culture with someone from another country. This is the organization I went with http://www.nextglobal.org/ and here is another one that operates all over the United States http://www.usivy.net/.