All Forum Posts by: Jon K.

I don't think you can say "no boyfriends moving in" to a single family unit. She's entitled to guests. You can, however, specify a guest duration (in my area, anyway) and state that all adults over 18 living there more than X amount of days every month must be approved and on lease.

You can't say "no parties."

Tenants have a right to quiet enjoyment, and the right to guests. She's not your roommate-- roommates can say "no parties." Your lease can state that noise should not disturb neighboring tenants, etc.

"Seemed responsible?" Did you screen them? Credit? Personal references? Employment/income check?

This.

It's not your problem.

And any remotely decent lawyer could figure out how to send a letter with or without a last name, or find out the name on his own. Either way, not your problem nor your business. Ignore the inquiry altogether.

How many vacant units do you want?

If you raise the rent $150 all at once, you'll probably lose at least a few tenants.

I would raise rent 25-50 when their lease expired. Since yours are month to month, you could do it whenever. I would wait until the season where you find good tenants more easily, not during the slow winter move-in months.

I figure... most people live with spouses/kids and deal with that for free. Why wouldn't I deal with other people for fairly good money for a while until I get better relatively passive income going?

My house literally makes more on it's own renting out rooms than most people do working full-time minimum wage jobs. I remind myself of that often, and suddenly minor roommate annoyances aren't so bad. Plus SFH tenants income.

You might be older. It does take patience and being a cheap person, but I also have a wing of the house that's larger than my previous apartments to myself.

I've lived in apartments where the entire apartment was smaller than my bedroom. My bedroom is private, then I've got shared living spaces. I've got more personal space than I did in an apartment I had. And I get money to share my common areas, instead of me paying to share apartment common areas.

It is sacrificing being naked on the couch. We also watch "TV" on our own iPads in common areas, so there's no fighting over a TV or hearing their crap shows.

I don't feel locked in my room. I can walk around in anything I could on the beach. I learned to be very clear with potential roommates upfront about what kind of house this is and what to expect. If you don't, yeah. roommates will take a mile if you give an inch, and cause problems. It's a retreat for all of us... very quiet compared to most roommate situations. You definitely have to find people who like a quiet house... otherwise you're dealing with stereos, TVs, and noise. I also wouldn't live with 18 year old party types who want to throw a party every day.

But, yeah, people do use the kitchen and that gets old. And other people aren't as clean as I am and don't help out much. Most of the people I've had either are so busy or travel a lot that I rarely see them, or are the types that just prefer to hang out in their rooms. I choose people who like their/my house as a quiet, private retreat.... definitely important to find people who like a quiet house instead of a social/party house. Having roommates plus their friends/dates over all the time would suck. Mine are quiet at home and don't have people over much.

It would be nice to be able to run naked around or blare my TV at 3 a.m. if I feel like it if I lived alone again. I can see that. I'll eventually live alone, run naked, and not be bothered by any tenant ever. I wouldn't necessarily do this for 20 years. At some point it would get old.

I wouldn't let anyone other than my potential kids/parents/spouse live with me free. I don't enjoy living with people necessarily, but I like the extra money.

All sorts of tenants annoy me, whether roommates or SFH tenants. Roommates here give me more rental income than one SFH I had, so I can stand living in an "bedroom apartment/house wing" and sharing a kitchen/livings/etc. I don't really cook, so sharing a kitchen doesn't drive me insane. There are multiple living rooms, so that also helps. Come to think of it, I don't want to own SFH with tenants forever either-- not unless I hire a property manager and they're a huge cash cow.

I wouldn't want to do this roommate situation if it was a tiny house, or if my bedroom was near the other bedrooms. I can still hear a little noise at times, but no worse than a normal apartment. It's like having our own apartments (bedrooms) within a house and sharing the common areas.

Utilities and repairs can eat up a lot of the profits if you're not careful, and there's wear/tear on one's house. My profit ratio has definitely improved since I first started this. I'm also careful not to get "work at home" people, or retired people, or people without a job/college who are home 24/7. Those types would drive most anyone nuts.... and run up the utility bill.

Someone with a brand new house and no experience doing this (and understand of the insurance/utility cost implications) I would suggest they not rent out their rooms. Same with people who don't know what roommate rules are necessary and how to enforce those rules. Some people don't realize that normal insurance won't necessary cover all the risks associated with rooming houses. I talked to my insurance guy extensively and planned for the worst. I also don't allow pets (usually; a few exceptions over the years), smoking, swimming pools/hot tubs, firepits, etc... my insurance wouldn't tolerate that in a shared living situation. I also wouldn't do the 'rent a room' thing in some very tenant friendly states. My state tends to protect "rent a room in your house homeowners" from bad tenants. For most people, I wouldn't actually recommend renting out rooms unless they really know what they're getting themselves into in terms of: insurance, repairs, liability, noise, screening people, state tenant-landlord laws, etc.

The main irritating thing about roommates is when they whine about silly stuff- "my internet went down" 5 minutes after it went down. I learned quick that sharing internet with anyone is a terrible idea (and a liability). Sharing only common are furniture, and nothing else-- certainly never sharing food or condiments or paper towels-- is the way to go. The less you share, the better. And pick a cleaning schedule upfront. And include roommate house rules in the lease. The first batch of people complained about the cleaning schedule, so we modified it and now anyone who moves in knows how we clean upfront.

People don't clean nearly enough here, and that's very annoying for sure. But it's decent looking. For thousands a year, I don't mind cleaning my house an extra time or two a year when I really think about the money. It's annoying that some roommates I've had didn't always do their fair share of cleaning, but I'll deal with it when I run the financial numbers. It's also irritating that I do the yard work, repairs, pay utilities, and all that non-sense. Including utilities is a terrible, terrible idea. Since I allow short-term, it's just too tedious to calculate utility shares every month.

I would definitely suggest anyone doing this include monthly or bi-weekly maid service in the rent as a required fee. I really, really should have done that.

I don't plan to do this forever. At some point, I'll settle down... and have to deal with my spouse/kids who don't pay rent yet make noise and dirty my house. :D

Roommates and SFH tenants all annoy the crap out of me and can be whiny and entitled sometimes, but I keep reminding myself of the numbers. Early-ish retirement, fewer hours I have to work now, and starting to get some passive income going. Eventually I don't want to have to deal with roommates or single family home tenants--- either I want property managers and repairmen to deal with all of that non-sense, or I'll find a more passive income approach.

Living with roommates tells you a lot about yourself and other people. More than I would ever have wanted to know...

Yes, it's legal, and my insurance covers my doing so.

I've got rooms rented out already-- one more room to rent. I like the fairly good money that comes with multiple roommates, so it's worth it to me. Though, yeah, it's sometimes a huge PITA. I got a good roommate lease after the first bunch I had, and fast too. Then again, my SFH tenants are also a PITA at times.

It's easier to evict "boarders" here that live with you than SFH's. If someone has a long lease here, I can still give them 30 days notice even so. I don't want to end up with a broke roommate who doesn't pay and breaks my stuff though. I've never had to try to evict someone from a roommate setting.

Good point. Then they'll ask me to pay late and so on. The reason I considered it was mostly because they wanted weekly rent only until February. They currently rent another property in another city, and that lease expires January 31. That's where their income for rent is going right now-- their existing rental in another city. That's why they want weekly rent here until their other lease expires. They're moving here for their new job at a law firm. (And, yeah, I probably shouldn't rent to anyone working at a law firm, secretary or not.)

This is a stranger... I only rent to strangers. I don't do business with friends.

True. My gut said consider them for some reason, but now I'm saying deny. If they can't come up with money for one bedroom, I probably don't want them in my house.

I have insurance. If a tenant ever were to take my stuff, it's insured. Of course, I want to avoid having my stuff taken so I usually don't accept people who are flat out broke (except current students). I would lock my bedroom and office doors even if I lived alone. Old habit from living in the urban center. Plus, more signs of entry if someone ever broke in and took stuff, and it would take them longer to break in-- they wouldn't get away with much if anything.

I should say that I live in an incredibly safe neighborhood with neighbors I know who 'guard' the neighborhood. Anytime I so much as leave a front door open on accident, I get a phone call asking if everything is ok. If a tenant started moving stuff out, I get a call. Like clockwork. Not that I depend on this, but it's another nice safety net -- but insurance on the house/my stuff is my main safeguard.

I let complete strangers who I thoroughly check. I don't do business with friends. I don't want to have to evict a friend who can't pay rent if they get laid off. Doing this with strangers mean I can set the house rules, get signed leases, check their rental history, etc. Doing that with friends is awkward. I'm not taking in bums, but professionals. Some of my renters have owned their own home or even currently do, but relocated here for a job. Most of the renters are students or new graduates or just people needing or wanting to save money. The floor plan of my house and my neighborhood/city make this much less... risky or annnoying.... than in some cities/homes. The floor plan is a good match for this sort of situation, and the neighborhood tends to draw in professionals. We hardly see each other, and not knowing them means we are polite-- but don't see each other or hang out with each other like friends do, thus not getting on each other's nerves or expecting "friend rules" to apply.

I want all rooms occupied because it means more money. With multiple roommates, I can get more rent than a lot of SFHs. With fewer tenants, less rent means the numbers aren't as desirable.

I wouldn't just rent out a room to one other person-- one room rent isn't worth doing this to me. Not enough money, plus a hassle to live with someone for only the rent of one bedroom. It's the multiple rooms making the rental income from this enough money that I do it since the rental income for just renting rooms is more than some SFH's I've rented out.

Ah. Yeah, that does make sense. For some reason, them working at a law firm made me feel safer. But I forgot about the fact that they have built-in sue-ers.

It certainly doesn't make me Trump, but it's real money. And easy too.

Rooms for rent in my house rent for a lot of SFH and apartment rents that people get from being a "real" landlord. Not bad for side income from my own home, I would say.

Renting out one room wouldn't be much money. It's renting out multiple rooms that's key and makes it financially worth it. Most people wouldn't bother renting out a room for just the money that one room is-- make it multiple rooms and we're talking decent money comparable to SFH rental rates. Hence why I like my rooms (and single family homes with tenants) all occupied. I want every property I have making me the most money, roommate house or single family house.

It also helps to live in urban areas. I once rented a room in someone's house in the city-- that couple renting out their rooms were making $5000+ a month off of renting out rooms in their own (massive, urban, ritzy) home with multiple roommates. They catered to visiting professionals, and that place was immaculately furnished and allowed short-term leases. Not too shabby of rent for one house, huh? How many rentals do you have that make $5000+ month per home? My single family properties aren't pulling that kind of rent.

I also don't expect roommates to have as much cash or income as 'real' tenants. Someone who could afford to buy a house or makes a ton of money and could easily afford their own apartment/house isn't going to want to live with roommates. Unless they own the house and make fairly good money renting out rooms...

Probably is best that I continue my "rent and deposit due at lease signing" policy.

Still debating about allowing a trained dog.