Arizona OO condo - how to structure room rental agreement

[Michelle Oblena]

Hello all - first post! Would appreciate your thoughts on situation here.

My son and I are about to close on a condo in Gilbert, AZ. My son - whose name is on the loan/title and goes to college in the area - would like to rent out a couple of the rooms to friends. We didn’t necessarily want the other kids to know that he owns the place. I’m really struggling on crafting the appropriate rental agreement and wanting to provide a level of separation and degree of confidentiality between his roommates, mainly to avoid any potential interpersonal conflicts. I would like the roomies to pay him the rent, but any issues should be directed to me.

I have researched subleasing, which would require him to be the primary leasee, but that means he would have to sign a lease with a “landlord”? Which I suppose could be me? It would seem strange that an owner would sign a lease with a landlord. I’ve also looked at simply a roommate agreement, but if I understand that correctly, that means a new agreement would have to be crafted everytime there is a change in the composition of the current group, a new agreement would have to be made? In a roommate agreement, I guess we’ll have to omit my son’s portion of the “rent” (because technically he wouldn’t be paying any)?

Are there other types of contracts/agreements that would make sense in this situation? Our goal with this property is for the renters to cover the mortgage (in this case they will), build equity in a year or two, and 1031-exchange the equity for another property (perhaps a multifamily, duplex, or 4-unit apartment).

Many thanks for any insight!