For all you landlords renting by the room- Best practices???

[Kimberly Kesterke]

Hello Landlords!!

I have a 3 bedroom property that I think would be great to rent by the room- however up until now, I've pretty much gone the traditional routes of renting. I wanted to see if I could collect a few best practices on the following: 

1. Do you provide essentials in the common areas such as furniture, dishes, etc?

2. Do you rent each room separately, or rent to groups? For example, if its a 3 bedroom- do you rent to 3 people who know each other or rent by the room? 

3. Any tips on Utilities? Are you covering the utility bills and rolling them into the rent? Splitting the utilities each month by # of rooms? 

Would love to hear insights from people who are doing this and having success. My instincts tell me I can make the unit more profitable this way, but understand there will be some initial set up costs. 

Talk soon- Kim