Hey @Nicholas D'Andrea!
I am a HUGE advocate of FF and have rented now I think 5 of my units to nurses and other travel professionals. The rent by the room strategy is great and lucrative but can be hard to find people willing to do it.
I have run rent by the room rentals at the bottom of a duplex 2/1 and a small single family home 2/1. In all the cases they did not know each other prior to moving in together, but turned out to work just fine. I was charging up to $1600 PER room. (Insane) as I know that the demand was high, and the hospitals paid pretty awesome per diems for housing:
Some things you should do on the onset:
Make it clear in your listing that there is the option to rent by room. Most people want their own spaces, but I feel like younger people; especially women, like knowing someone else is home and offers a bit of safety. It is also a social experience for them.
Things to do:
- Have them talk to each other prior to committing: (this is not always possible but I have done it at every turnover and it has worked out great). - Make sure they understand each others schedules, what are their hobbies, do they like pets, two of my nurses ended up becoming great friends and now travel together on assisgnments
Some pros you have going on!
You have 2.5 bathrooms, the fact that hypothetically everyone could at least have a semi private area is awesome. How is the living area? I would also divide up kitchen space (cupboards) for each individual tenant.
The Cons (potentially)
Roommate conflict. I have not had this happen but heard from another investor of cases where one of the tenants was a late night partier and would disturb their sleep.
Managing several leases for one house at one time can be annoying and cumbersome.
Other ideas:
If you have such a large home have you thought of maybe running an add at the same time advertising just the big house? You would be surprised of some hits that happen. Insurance claims like big homes and there might be one off cases where you could make almost as much by renting by room to one family or group of people.
Hope this helps!
K-Man
