Washington DC House hacking

[Maggie B.]

Hi all, I am new to REI and am very skittish given I live in Washington DC (extremely tenant-friendly). I have heard my share of horror stories including a co-worker who spent 10 months trying to evict a tenant. My husband and I are trying to house-hack as part of our overall goal of FI. We just purchased a large SFH close to a metro with a basement apartment that we need to get sub-metered (not that big a deal, according to a friend who has done it) and we plan to rent the upper 4 bedrooms as individual rooms and live in the basement apartment.

We have been posting on zillow, cozy, and craigslist and have generally responded to inquiries with caution (asking for a pre-screening before even doing a showing) and would be grateful for any additional guidance. I am concerned that we are turning off perfectly reasonable tenants due to our cautiousness. The thing we want to avoid more than anything is having a non-paying tenant living above us who requires us to go through a prolonged eviction process which is more trouble in DC than most places. We have also posted at work and on our church bulletin boards to try to get trustworthy tenants. 

It isn't a problem to cover the full costs of the house, which is why we are erring on the side of caution. 

Any suggestions on how else to get good tenants as roommates? And any suggestions on how our process needs to run to enable us to get the good tenants and not turn them off, while turning off the bad ones? I've read the forums on how to do pre-screenings, but I think most DC landlords are not as rigorous and I think people may be irritated by having to fill out the screening form before a showing.

[Nicole A.]

Since this thread was brought back, I too, would like to hear an update.

I might as well also give my 2 cents lol. Your biggest defense in a bad/nonpaying tenant is to truly know and understand your local rental laws. Many people say that Baltimore County and City make it  hard to evict, but really while there might be more hoops to jump through, it really isn't difficult nor should typically take 10-11 months. If DC is anything like Baltimore, it should be more like 2 months average...from very start to eviction day.

Again, your biggest defense is knowing your local rental laws, so research them now if you haven't. Your lease should reflect those local laws. Next defense is to not settle on a mediocre tenant. Be willing to have a vacancy a little while longer over accepting a mediocre application.