door locks recommended for Rent by the room?

Question

I'm House hacking my first SFH rental property and I plan on moving out after a year.  Does each room need a door lock with key for safety reasons, or should I just keep privacy knobs installed?  Is it worth the time and money to change out the locks? What door locks do you recommend (key vs touch key)?

Angie Castro · Answer

If you are going to rent by the room I HIGHLY suggest getting a Keypad entry secure lock for each room. Save the headache of becoming an arbitrary in their fights plus minimize the liability.

Matt McGuire · Answer

I am doing the same strategy but I am not going to live there. The property is about 20 miles away and I am looking for a door knob lock with a key code that hooks to wifi so I can change it remotely whenever someone moves out. This seems like something most Airbnb owners would want too. I'm surprised there aren't more options out there. Most of the ones I am finding are over $100 and I have 7 bedrooms so I haven't pulled the trigger yet. When I do I will update but if someone finds one in the meantime I would love to know which one they used.

The best one I've found so far is TurboLock TL111WM Smart Door Lock. It does allow you to change the code from the app but it connects via Bluetooth so you have to be near the door to change the code. But, it lets you input up to 9 codes so I was thinking of just programming 9 in each knob and then just cycling which one I give out as tenants come and go. These ones are $75 at Walmart.

Tommy Parker · Answer

I suggest having door locks with keys. Honestly, I'd do key because of how easier and cheaper just based on my own thinking (no research).

Kimothy Bynum · Answer

Yea locks designed for each door sounds like a good idea. How much would it cost for you to add locks on each door?

Sim Narang · Answer

@Angie Castro - I have been reading this as being the recommended step, my only hesitation is the cost as I have a 5Bed (min ~$90/room)

@Kimothy Bynum At minimum $450 for this cheap keypad entry which matches my bronze hardware (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ho...) or I could spend ~$141 to get the Kwikset MasterKey https://www.amazon.com/Kwikset...

I have two rooms with their own bathrooms which I'm considering using AirBNB or Traveling nurses - so how about 2 x keypad and 3 x key knobs?   I need to do a better job estimating rehab costs on my next property...

Waylon Bruce Moore · Answer

Sim, Which lock did you settle on for your interior doors?

Amy Greenwood · Answer

Following. We're house hacking a 7 bedroom. Starting with one room at a time. My husband, adult son, and I live here so we want to be cautious.

Matt McGuire · Answer

That's true if you are house hacking, but my goal was to never have to go there. I don't want to have to collect keys from tenants and deal with lost keys. I just wanted to be able to do everything remotely.

Matt McGuire · Answer

I am using Hornbill locks that I got from Amazon. They are OK but I have had some problems with the ones that are installed on the exterior doors. My house is a 7 bedroom and all the interior doors are working fine. The outside ones will sometimes just quit working randomly and the tenants are locked out. It seems to always happen in the middle of the night or super early like 4am.

The app will randomly generate a code for you but its not automatic. I have to go in and tell it to generate one but it only generates an 8 digit code for some reason. I like to keep it simple with 4 digit codes so I just "randomly" generate one myself.

door locks recommended for Rent by the room?

Most Popular Reply