Reluctant to rent out my basement suite, what to do for best?

[Dave Fairb]

My first post here and maybe just a bit more of a vent and looking to get clarity. 

I have a house, 3 levels, has 3 separate entrances, kitchens, bathrooms.  

Current set up is; 

me on main floor 

3 international students on top floor paying 600 each per month. Not much trouble from them. 

Basement suite which is 2, could be 3 bedrooms. Currently doing short term rentals. 

For 4 years I was renting out rooms in the basement to international students. Also at 600 each, it was going well and then Covid came along and hard to find international students now.

So I fixed up the suite, made it look really good. Professional pictures and put it on AirBnb and VRBO. I got a bad first guest. The place was booked by someone sayings its for her daughter. Turned out not to be the case, it was actually booked by a lawyer who advocates for homeless people, and guest was a mess, and made a mess and broke stuff etc... 

Then I got a booking from someone that seemed OK, had good reviews. But a quick google search and she's a porn actor and has only fans account. After the homeless person I really couldn't be bothered to find out if she was OK, or was going to use my place to 'make movies'

At the moment I have a couple staying in my airBnb that are good, and I'm relieved about that. 

But, 2 duds and one good one is not a good start though and has me thinking short term rentals, particularly in the time of covid is sketchy. 

A good friend who is a landlord gave his opinion that short term rentals are not a good idea at the moment as no international travellers. So he figures rent out the suite. 

He's actually pretty good at picking tenants and landlording. 

I on the other hand could have picked better in the past. Also I got into landlording by buying a triplex in a dodgy area, and I inherited the tenants. I just couldn't get decent tenants there. Trust me it was a tough one to rent out. So after 2 years I sold it. But I had to go to 2 tribunals for landlord tenant act and boy was that ever a pain in the ***. And it completely put me off renting out month to month. 

That's how come I ended up renting to international students. It's a bit more work in some ways, but they are usually friendly and I find it's easy to overcome problems with then should they arise. 

My current house, with the basement suite that I'm considering renting out is in a good area, vacancy rates are really low. So there's potential for picking from lots of quality applicants. Unlike my triplex I sold, where I had a tough time. 

If I rent out to students, I can rent 3 bedrooms at 600 each. The 3rd bedroom is an extra room next to the laundry room, it's a real room with a window, smoke alarm etc..  But, would be hard to rent that as a 3rd bedroom if I rented it as a suite/month to month. But the students don't mind at all. 

So in my area a 2 bedroom suite is around $1550 Canadian. If I rent to students at 600 each its 1800. (but they aren't around nowadays, when are they coming back? no one knows) 

Another good thing about the students is that I can say it's 1 person per room etc... So I know there's only 3 people down there, and I can set fair and reasonable share house rules. 

With a month to month, I guess I can say how many people on the lease. But they are allowed to have people stay for up to 2 weeks etc.. 

And that raises other issues, as we have 1 hot water tank and we've got by with it for 12 years with 3 up, me middle, 3 down.... but if I rented suite, I think I'd have to hook up an on demand gas water heater too. 

If it was family of 3 that rented, then inlaws come to stay, that'd be say 5 or 6 down, me in middle and 3 up is 9 or 10 people in one house. It can get a bit crazy in this 8 bedroom house. 

Financially; my mtg and utils, insurance etc is in the 3200 a month range. so in past with 6 students, I collected enough to cover my bills and maybe improvements. 

I have about 650k equity in the house, it's gone up a lot since I bought it. Has recently been rezoned to allow 6 story building. But need neighbours onboard for that, and that! is a whole other story. 

Prices are rising and I could sell and maybe have 750k in my pocket by next spring. I'm late 50's and I think I'd just rent a place for a while and find out what I want to do, travel and see family, enjoy life in a different way??? Hard to say as I've done what I do for so long and I actually think I'd miss it.