How nice does your SFH need to be to house hack / rent out rooms?

[Sean Oh]

Hi everyone - would love some feedback / insight from those who have house hacked a SFH successfully before.

I'm looking to buy my first place (in Oakland, CA - Fruitvale specifically) and wanted to rent out some rooms in the place I'm looking at. It's walk / bike-able) to public transportation (Bay Area Rapid Transit). Very blue collar area, but not too bad in my opinion.

The place itself is pretty solid, but like mentioned in the description, it's not remodeled or shiny at all. Carpet in every room, mostly shades of brown for all interior, no double pane windows, etc. 

This doesn't bother me at all, but will this affect:

1. 1) My ability to get potential renters at all? (especially with covid in play)
2. 2) If I do attract renters, will they all be of lower quality? I'm hoping for young professionals like myself to occupy the rooms, but I'm wondering if that's unrealistic. 

Much appreciated - 

[Will Fraser]

Hi @Sean Oh, welcome to the BiggerPockets forums!  In general what needs to be true of your property to gain advantage on the rental market always comes down to competition.  There is an useful saying that "among the blind, the one eyed man is king."  If everything on the rent-by-the-room scene in Fruitvale is white-on-white, quartz countertops on shaker style cabinets and redone-to-tha-9s bathrooms then that's your competition.  If you are competitive then you'll compete.  If not, you'll bat cleanup for the people who either can't/don't want to afford the other or don't qualify for the other. 

Conversely, if your place is already much nicer (objectively . . . don't do that normal homeowner thing where everything in the home is the best ever bc it is your precious -- think LOTR's Schmeigal) then you'll find that not much is needed to gain the upper crust of tenants.

Let the market determine your moves :)