House Hacking By Room Rental

[Joshua Hughes]

Hello BP fam! I am a new member and new home owner. I bought a 3B1B looking for clear advise on how to go about renting out the rooms and what to look out for?! I found the house hacking idea off of Bigger Pockets and Youtube. How would I go about screening applicants and collecting payments?

[Ian Jimeno]

Hi @Joshua Hughes,

First of all, congratulations! You're already ahead of the curve of those who don't commit.

There are several places you can look: Zillow Rental Management (I've had solid leads here), Facebook Marketplace (another good one), and Craigslist (you can get weird people). 

No matter where you look and no matter how the potential renters act when they meet you, SCREEN THEM! Credit history, employment history, criminal background, etc. Also, look to see if they are on time to your meetings with you, check how they maintain their car, how they hold themselves, and see what their day-to-day schedule is like. You don't want someone working graveyard shifts if you're working during the day, or maybe you do because you can be quiet around them! I would suggest getting a book like The House Hacking Strategy by Craig Curelop (I'm an agent with The FI Team headed by Craig here in Denver) to help you with that process.

As far as managing your own rental, I go through Apartments.com. It's free, simple, and you can write state-specific leases through it, although BP has some solid places you can get leases as well. You can set up rent, lease terms (annual? month to month?), and even have operational items such as maintenance requests processed through it. Renters can go through Apartments.com as well to pay rent to you. I can't speak on any other platforms just because I haven't used them, but there are several out there! Do your research, of course.

Let me know how it goes! YouTube is a great place to get started as well. Hope this helps.

Ian