All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Craig

Hi house hacker for multiple single family households. I want to see if anybody has a heat pump installed in a SFH that is rented out by the room and what has been your experience been? What was your cost? Is it feasible? Should I be looking at other alternatives? What cost savings did you experience? Im looking to drive down the utilities bill that comes with having 4-5 people occupy the rooms using baseboard or wall heating. Any insight helps.

I currently occupy a 5 bedroom and use the shared room concept.  It's great for cash flow and I have very little problem with tenants.  All of my tenants are professionals which is the way I think you should lean instead of young students.  They come home after work and spend most of their time in their rooms.  Some times I wont see a tenant for days or a week.  Taking out the trash and washing dishes has been a issue at times because nobody wants to clean up after each other.  You can levitate this with a maid which I find is worth it.  It eats into my cash flow but you make so much cashflow you don't mind it. This is my first rent by room house and I plan to rinse and repeat.  It's like owning a multifamily.  No chaos.  I even allow pets.  There's a dog and cat that live here so that's extra cashflow as well.     

I’m a investor in WA who’s looking to get invested into the St Louis market and I’m looking to see how to get started. I assume the first place will be to get qualified. Are there any local investors who can help with banks, realtors, areas to avoid, etc?

@William Collins @Michael Doherty alot of great points you all have made.  Thank you all for responding.  Here's some additional questions:

-Do you furnish the rooms?  I thought about advertising i can furnish the room for you but I will tack on a $100 to the rent for a fully furnished room.  

-What kind of door locks or keypad are your using?  

-Do you use a cleaning lady?

@Filipe Pereira Thanks for your reply.  

How has that been for three years househacking? Can you tell me a little bit about your experience.  I've been doing 1 for a couple of months for few months and its been great but I only deal with one person at my current house.  The next house will be a 5 bed 3 bath so that will be something new for me.

Here's a question for you.  What do you use door locks for those individuals rooms?

@Grace Wang thank you for your input. Sorry about the double post.  I'm in the Tacoma area.

-For the temperature, i heard that some landlords control with a NEST. So i was wondering if there was a device but fans and portable heater is a way to go.

-I felt similar about the washer/dryer.

-How about door locks for each room? I know some people use keyed fobs or just different locks for each room. Did you have a preference? 

Grace thank you for your input.  I'm in the Tacoma area.  

-For the temperature, i heard that some landlords control with a NEST.  So i was wondering if there was a device but fans and portable heater is a way to go.

-I felt similar about the washer/dryer.  

-How about door locks for each room?  I know some people use keyed fobs or just different locks for each room.  

I have some questions:

I recently bought a 5 bedroom 3 bath house. I plan to househack it and I have some general questions.

1) Should I rent the whole house as a 4 bed 2 bath or by rooms individually? If I rent by room, I'm looking at 37% increase in ROI and 2-3% increase in cap rate than doing the whole house. What has everybody experiences been househacking by room? Is it worth the headache for 4 separate leases or just rent one lease for the whole house? I'm used to living with people but not landlording over them.

1)  How do you advertise a househack on FB Marketplace, Zillow, Craiglist, etc? If you have any templates or wording that works consistently for you I'd appreciate it.  

2) Controlling the temperature while house hacking.  How do you control the temperature amongst 3 to 4 other housemates?  How do you make sure fights don't break out about this. 

3) Splitting the utilities while house hacking.  If your house hacking, do you split utilities with housemates or include in the rent?  Does this strategy change if you go by room versus whole house?  

4) Washer and Dryer.  Do you provide w/d in the unit or do you require tenet to purchase.  I bought w/d in a previous househack but i've been told not too because it's one more item you have to maintain. 

Thanks for any help you can provide. 

Nice thank you for your input.  

I just bought my 2nd property and I wondered how many properties do you have a security system in? I put one in my first house because of the neighborhood and the busy street it's located in. The new house I don't think requires it but wanted to see what other fellow investors do? This is a SFH in a C+ neighborhood. Should I put one in every house I buy?