What type of rental should this be? Next step?

[Account Closed]

I bought a house three months ago to use as rental. I furnished it hoping I can try out airbnb while posting my rental and waiting for prospective tenants. But I am not liking this airbnb as I am not in the mood of hosting guests. I would rather rent and tenants take care of themselves. My job keeps me super busy for me to clean the house and comply with all covid laws while hoping to not get sued by guests. I couldn't find any property management (pm) company that manages airbnb in this area (Philadelphia, PA). Plus I am not sure how to trust a third party to manage airbnb long term while I am not occupying the place which is what I am aiming for as I want to move out of state next year.

I got suggestion to sell the house and gain some profit but I don't want to. I like the location and want to hold onto the property.

I was suggested to do house hacking, i.e. rent the rooms but am finding it hard to get a pm company to do this for me as Philadelphia law doesn't allow rent per rooms. Then again, what surprises me is how all the large univisetiry apartments get away with it. They rent rooms to individual students on separate lease? How?

Anyways, if a pm company isn't doing this, since I won't be in the property, the house hacking doesn't work for me. So far, I actually found couple folks who wanted to manage my property under the radar but they will be doing cash business.

At this point, I am going back and forth...this is stressing me out. So I call pm companies and they want to know how I wanna rent the property. It's furnished. But it's a SFH. If I rent to family, they will want to bring their furniture. I have dresser, bed, desk in each room suitable for students and young professionals and not for families. So I would have to literally sell all these furniture that I just bought a month ago! Also, the property is near two universities and single families wouldn't wanna live here.

Then comes the harder part. It's a five bedroom house and I am not sure if this property falls under Philadelphia's educational housing district which will make it unlawful to have more than 3 strangers living together. So can I rent this house to group of friends who want to pay for the whole house under one lease or would that get me in trouble?

2nd fl has 3 rooms 1 bath. It becomes too much sharing imo. 3rd fl has 2 rooms 1 bath. I was told to remodel the 3rd fl to have 1 unit. So do I HAVE to remodel this house to make constant cash flow while staying out of any trouble from authorities. It's a 100 year old house and I was hoping to get 10 more years of use from this, and gain some money. So, in future I can do a major renovation instead of doing piece by piece now.

Any thoughts? Appreciate all the suggestions. I need to find a decision soon to better gear toward right group of people. Thank you so much in advance.

[Sheryl Sitman]

@Account Closed It sounds like you are struggling to focus on a strategy and stick with it. The scenarios you describe all require some level of expertise -AirBNB, Student housing... these are niche markets that require particular knowledge, skills, infrastructure... to be truly good. And each market has its own requirements -- student housing around Temple is going to be a bit different from student housing around Penn. And yes, you could be in an area that does not allow more than 3 unrelated people.  I would suggest that if you want to hold on to the property and get it working for you, not to get obsessed with maximizing the income - just because you think it is possible. Find a good property management company willing to take a look at the property and make their suggestion of what they could do with it and at the same time, look closely at what is renting in the nearby vicinity and to who.  You may need to put the furniture into storage. Or maybe you can rent to a group of students. Section 8 is always in need of large properties but not everyone wants to go there. You can rent it -- it all depends on your willingness to adapt to the current need of the market. Good luck!