Recs for Property Management Of Condo

[Faris Monshi]

Hey all,

I'm considering property management for a condo I was previously house hacking in North Hollywood, but am now thinking about renting out the room I was previously living in, meaning I'd be renting by the room (2 rooms total). I'm not sure what companies to reach out to that have experience in condos and rent-by-room situations. Any recs?

On a separate note, I'm curious to hear any thoughts on if this is even a good idea, compared to renting out the unit entirely. I'm already getting bogged down and in the weeds with considerations of going furnished vs. unfurnished, utilities paid vs. having the 2 tenants sort it out amongst themselves lol... Am I overthinking this? I don't want to give my current tenant the boot if it makes enough sense not to.

Cheers,

Faris

[Jonathan Roldan]

Hi Faris,

Renting by the room is House Hacking! You are just not living in it. You should follow Felipe Mejia (Insta handle felipemejiarei), this is his bread and butter. He has many properties in which he house hacks (rents by the room just like you are planning to). If you follow him you might answer your own questions.

To weigh in a little from my perspective; there are many ways you can approach this. Everything has its pros and cons and you need to weight them yourself. Furnished vs Unfurnished: if you you furnished you could charge extra for each rental home, plus any money spent I am sure you can deduce it as a business expense (please consult a CPA I am not one). However, that means you need to pay money out of pocket for furniture and you run the risk of damage by the tenants.

Utilities, now this is a though one. This is one of the reasons people don't like it, because you are moving two complete strangers (from the tenant perspective) together and there is always a risk for confrontation and issues arising between them. However,  if you create a system that anticipates such issues you can unload some of that burden. I cannot recall the exact episode in the BP podcast, but there was this investor who had explicit instructions (steps if you will) on what the tenants should do prior to contacting him (the owner) with complaints about the roommates. You could do something like this in order to solve this potential future issues. With this in mind, you can off load the utilities to your tenants have them paid for it and be in charge of it. Another option is you taking on the utilities, and just like with the furnished home, you can increase rents and indicate that utilities will be covered in the rent and potentially have this deduced as a business expense as well (again talk to a CPA).

I would suggest you listen to some of the podcast that solely focus on house-hacking and see what strategies have been done that you like and would want to adopt. Also, Look at your local rental and ask the following questions: are rentals furnished? How common is it? Can the rent be increase vs an unfurnished home? How are other condos in your area being advertised? Are utilities included? Which utilities? Are rents higher for those with utilities included? Would I be better off doing short rentals?