HOA and renting by room single family. How is it even possible???

[Alex Bush]

Hi, I am very puzzled. I am researching on how I can rent out single family houses by the room but it seems like every single HOA rules and regulations prohibits this. I'm in Houston TX area.

As far as I can tell every HOA document has something like this one form or another:

The term "single family residential purposes" also shall be defined as: (1) one or more persons related by blood, marriage or adoption, which may include only parents and their dependent children, siblings, parents or grandparents; or (2) by no more than two unrelated persons living together as a single housekeeping unit and their dependent children, siblings, parents or grandparents.

See Article III Section 3.1 here as an example: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AneU_VTSiG...

I'm reading this as - you can have either one roommate if you live in a house yourself or you can have two different people rent out two rooms in your house but that's it, you can't say get a 5 br house and get 5 roommates in.

So I do not understand how people can possibly be renting out houses by the room but I keep hearing about on BP podcast and other places?? What about student housing??

I am not talking about STRs (short term rentals) - airbnb is a whole other can of worms and I understand that there are a lot more regulations and rules there on city and state level. But how come it seems to be so impossible to rent by the room without a hanging threat of HOA lien over your head?? How do other investors do it?

Thank you for any piece of advice and wisdom in advance!

[Matt Devincenzo]

You buy homes that aren't in HOAs since those restrictions don't apply. Or often places like that will violate the HOA guideline, but as long as the tenants aren't obnoxious it is usually not enforced.

Another point is many municipalities also exclude multiple unrelated individuals from renting. Again it isn't enforced necessarily, but if there are issues at the home that will be one of the codes at their disposal to shut the property down.