New to Real Estate · Houston · Member since 2018 · 20 posts · 5 votes
Question for y'all- about to pick up a cool property near the Heights that's a single family home (1600 sq ft) that has a detached garage apartment (1100 sq ft). How do I go about renting each out to separate tenants? There is only one address so how do you handle mail for example?
Real Estate Agent · Houston, TX · Member since 2016 · 63 posts · 27 votes
5y
I had the same dilemma when I picked up a home with a garage apartment near NASA. I decided to rent out both to a guy that’s doing AirBnB. I get market rent and he makes his profit from the subleasing. It’s great if it’s win win for both parties
Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2019 · 66 posts · 58 votes
5y
I have a similar property, and my parent's have rental many like this in the Heights.
The biggest issue is shared utilities. I typically include the utilities in the rent price as splitting the utilities every month across multiple tenants is a hassle. If you have the water and electric split between the units that's even better.
As for the mail, I've always done a shared mailbox without any issues. If the tenants know it's a multi-family situation they are usually fine with it.
Depending on your location in the Heights, you can expect to fetch quite a bit on rent. We were renting literally a single bedroom with a bathroom, no kitchen, in the Heights for $1k month, and that was this 1940's quality interior.
Real Estate Agent · Houston, TX · Member since 2016 · 63 posts · 27 votes
5y
I had the same dilemma when I picked up a home with a garage apartment near NASA. I decided to rent out both to a guy that’s doing AirBnB. I get market rent and he makes his profit from the subleasing. It’s great if it’s win win for both parties
Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2019 · 66 posts · 58 votes
5y
We never conveyed the actual utilities cost to the renter. We just set the rent high enough that would cover the utilities, and just added "all bills paid" to the listing.
Yeah so if you have two units equal in size, I'd just do:
1 Unit Rental Rate: Typical rental rate (without utilities) + 50% of all utility cost (internet, electric, gas, water).
If you're interested in having someone take over the property and letting them sublease it, send me a PM - I might be interested if the terms work. We rented several houses in the Heights for many years.
Check with the local Post Office to see if they are willing to allow you to officially list-units A and B. Sometimes the post office will have you fill a form out and have it get approved. Otherwise what we have done when that was not approved just have each tenant list as A and B unit and depending on your mail person delivering they will put it in each mailbox.
In regards to utilities, in multi-family they use RUBS. There are companies that will do it for you for a small fee. You can google and read more about and use what you learned to do it yourself. Square footage and the number of people play a role in how to break utilities down.
Another option which can take more of your time is to submeter the electricity and water. Upfront cost but can help in future tenants complaining about having to pay other tenants portion because they were out of town..blah blah blah.
The pricer submeters can do auto reads without you having to go there and read the meter each month.