House hacking in Tacoma

[James Krusmark]

I'm very close to having a single family home in Tacoma under contract.  I plan to house hack it by renting out most of the bedrooms.  The home will have communal bathrooms, kitchen, and laundry areas.  I haven't been able to find solid answers on the legalities of renting out a single family home this way.  Does anyone have tips or experience in dealing with the City of Tacoma for this house hack?  

I also welcome any ideas on how to structure the leasing paperwork to account for the fact that multiple strangers will be sharing the bathrooms, kitchen. and the rest of the common areas?

[Ryan Evans]

You can put rules in the lease. You can also do a sublease agreement which may be worded a bit differently. A decent attorney should be able to put together a good lease for less than a couple hundred bucks and then you can just use it as a template from here on out. 

And just a tip, if you've got multiple people renting rooms, nobody will ever want to clean. Hiring a consistent cleaner to come through every couple of weeks is a must according to my friends who do that strategy in the area! Sure, it's an extra cost, but it makes a property more attractive to tenants as well, so it's worth considering.