Renting rest of the house while living in it.

[Uchenna Okoye]

Hi all, 

I'm new to Bigger Pockets. I just recently purchased a new house in Sacramento (Natomas area) with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bath 2300 square feet. I am currently unmarried and I don't feel comfortable living in a huge house on my own, so I have been considering renting. I came to Bigger Pockets to learn more about the best way to rent a single-family home while living in it. I prefer having privacy in general, so some of the options I have explored has maximum privacy given the situation. I had a few options: 

- Rent out the top floor which has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths including an owner's suite, and live on the first floor with kitchen access and a bedroom and bath, and create a blind/curtain to separate the hallway where the first floor living area begins. Downsides: no kitchen access for tenant. There's a loft upstairs that can be used as a living room and I can add a microwave and fridge to the laundry room, and the entrance would need to be shared between myself and the tenant.

- Rent out the entire kitchen, living room and upstairs and I live just in the bedroom and garage. Convert garage to a kitchen of some sorts that I can use, also add another laundry downstairs. This gives the tenant kitchen access as well, but we would still need to share an entrance as there's no way else to enter the first floor room from the garage, but from the living room. 

I can also airbnb each room, but that would be likely time consuming.
Does anyone rent out the rest of their home while living there? Is there a market for this type of living situation in the Sacramento region? What would be an ideal demographic for this situation (student, family etc). Any other tips to make this work?

Thanks in advance!

[Bryan Balducki]

@Uchenna Okoye I am renting out rooms in the Denver area and have used both the Airbnb strategy and the rent by room. I am not familiar with Sacramento but I’m sure there’s a rent by room market there also. Families wouldn’t be ideal for this situation(rent by room) but students and young adults trying to save money would be the main demographic. You could share the kitchen and rent out each room separately which works great for me. If not keen on sharing a kitchen, and you have more cash on hand, you could add a kitchenette/bathroom to the garage depending on your layout. Airbnb could be lucrative in this scenario as well but you will be sacrificing more time. Is there a backyard where you could legally add an additional dwelling unit? If so and you have the cash, I’d live in that back unit and rent out the whole house. Definitely some options here and hard to say which would fit your goals and lifestyle the best. Hope this brainstorming collaboration helped!