All Forum Posts by: Miller McSwain

Quote from @Andrew Kubik:

What system do you use to manage co-living arrangements? Do you have to use a platform like PadSplit or can you manage it through something like Rentvine? 

 PadSplit is mostly a listing service (like AirBnb). They charge 13-25% of gross rents, and in exchange, you get to list on their platform. They do have some management features like rent collection and agreement signing too.
But instead, we have been able to pretty easily find applicants on FREE services like Zillow, FB Marketplace, and Roomies. Then we do the rent collection and lease signing through Innago (also free). You could use something else like RentRedi though, they are all pretty similar.

Quote from @Luke Tamez:

How did you find out what would be the going rate for rents per room.  Was there other people around you who were doing the same?  Also for the houses you purchased and your not living in them did they have to be non restricted houses?  Wouldnt it be a multi family and if its a deed restricted community they may say something,  How did you get around it ?

I actually built a "Rentometer for rooms" type tool you can check out that estimates room rents: https://CoLivingPro.io

Otherwise, you can look up what rooms are going for on places like Zillow, Roomies, and FB Marketplace in your city!

When buying houses I don't live in and rent out the rooms, the classification depends on the city/state. Everywhere I invest, the regulations say that a singlefamily home can have unlimited unrelated persons. So no issues there.
In some cities though, you'll find regulations that say a single family home is no more than 5 unrelated persons (or something similar). So you'd want to be mindful of the number of people in a market like that!

I am a Co-Living investor (and recent BiggerPockets author about the strategy :)) in Colorado, and I am interested in using this strategy in WA also, since it seems to have favorable Co-Living laws.
Looking to connect with anyone who has experience with room rentals in Washington or knows someone who does!

Quote from @Michelle Verdugo:

Quote from @Miller McSwain:

Quote from @V.G Jason:

When did you buy the properties? At what interest rate(if levered)? And at what average house price? What's your net income per tenant(after the nonsense) per month?

The first was in 2022 and am closing one this week. Over that time, 4% interest was my lowest, with some 8.5% as my highest. The one we are closing now is 7%.

In my market, our avg purchase price is ~$500k.

The cash flow (after the nonsense 😂) is typically ~$2000/month, which is usually around 12-14% cash on cash! This new one is $3000/month though (projected) :)

 How much do you put down for downpayment?

 Lower is better as it usually increases your cash on cash return. So when we have house hacked and rented the rooms, we always put 5% down. On the properties that we didn't live in at all, we've done anything from 15% to 25%. We'll usually just do the lowest that the lender will allow!

Quote from @V.G Jason:

When did you buy the properties? At what interest rate(if levered)? And at what average house price? What's your net income per tenant(after the nonsense) per month?

The first was in 2022 and am closing one this week. Over that time, 4% interest was my lowest, with some 8.5% as my highest. The one we are closing now is 7%.

In my market, our avg purchase price is ~$500k.

The cash flow (after the nonsense 😂) is typically ~$2000/month, which is usually around 12-14% cash on cash! This new one is $3000/month though (projected) :)

Quote from @Joe S.:

Quote from @Miller McSwain:

Yes! Stoked to answer anything and everything Co-Living!!!!!

Any reasonable price management if a property owner did not want to manage it themselves? 

 ~12-18% management fee is what I've seen. People do make the numbers work with that fee included. Personally, I self-managed and then hired a virtual assistant to follow the sytems/procedures I created. I just did the math and that works out to be around 2% of gross rents that I pay to them for their time ($10/hour)

Quote from @Ken M.:

Quote from @Miller McSwain:

Yes! Stoked to answer anything and everything Co-Living!!!!!

In today's climate is it legal to make it single sex co-living?

How do you get rid of the axe killers (or "Karens") you accidently signed a lease with?

 You cannot legally have "all guy" or "all girl" houses. That would violate fair housing laws by gender discrimination.

We've had a few instances of what we call "homewreckers": tenants who make the experience so terrible for everyone else that people want to move out. It doesn't happen often though. I can think of 2 people out of the ~100 residents we've had.
In every case, we've been able to get them out without eviction though.

We shoot them an email listing their lease violations. Attached, we include any hard evidence. The best is camera footage, although it could be something else like screenshots of messages that another tenant shares, etc. We do have cameras in the shared areas though (kitchen, living room), and I'd highly recommend it. We aren't watching them 24/7, but they are great to reference in scenarios like this. At the end of the email, we ask them to voluntarily agree to mutually end the lease and leave within X days. If they don't agree to do so, then we'd start the eviction process the next day.
But in every case, they've just agreed to leave. With such hard evidence, they know they'd lose any sort of eviction case (not to mention the cost/stress for everyone involved).

Quote from @Michelle Verdugo:

Co-living strategy? Is this different than a house hack (where you charge roommates rent)?

 Yes! I would define "House-Hack" as making money off of the residence you live in somehow. So, you could live in your property and:
1. Use the short-term rental strategy and short-term rent part of it
2. Use the mid-term rental strategy and mid-term part of it
3. Use the Co-Living strategy and rent out rooms
4. Other options

So you could use the Co-Living strategy on a house-hack property, or properties that you don't live in at all.

In fact, our first two properties were house hacks on which we used the Co-Living strategy. Since then, we've purchased many properties that we have never lived in, but we still use the Co-Living strategy.

Yes! Stoked to answer anything and everything Co-Living!!!!!

Hey! I actually just wrote the book for BiggerPockets on the Co-Living (room rental) strategy. It comes out in April and you can sign up for it here: https://CoLivingBook.com
Also, I see you are in Fort Collins, I'm in Colorado Springs!

As for PMs in Birmingham, I don't know any. If you shoot me a DM, I do know of one investor that is doing Co-Living in Birmingham (I think). I could connect you two!