Renting out additional room in my townhouse

[Rayshawn Kosie-Williams]

Hello Everyone! My name is Rayshawn Kosie-Williams and I am a fairly new investor. I was able to purchase my first townhome 6 months ago in this crazy market and have recently started listening to the BiggerPockets podcasts and have loved it. I am in the process of finding a roommate to rent out my additional bedroom and have started getting some hits on the sites that I have been using but feel a little overwhelmed and unsure of the next steps. Can anyone provide any guidance to how I should go about screening and drawing up a contract? (platforms/websites/references, etc to use). I am still in the early stages and will need to talk and vet each of the potentials a bit more, but just wanted to get the ball rolling in other areas as well. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!!

[Andrew Moore]

There are loads of free resources that would be more than enough for you from a property management standpoint. You could go as basic as venmo/cashapp to collect rent, or you could use something like Stessa, Apartments.com (who acquired Cozy), or TenantCloud. These generally have a system where you can have people submit applications, and you can run background checks, credit checks, collect rent, handle service requests for the tenant. 

BiggerPockets is a great resource to dive into. Look up specific key words that might be applicable to your situation and dive deep on the conversations people are having around those scenarios.

The House Hacking Strategy by Craig Curelop might be a good place for you start. They talk through various strategies of managing the tenant you co-exist with. Lots of other great books on there to check out.