All Forum Posts by: Pat Tobin

Be prepared for them to take more advantage of you and the property since they "know" you.  Have a lease and make it ironclad.  Remind them it's your business.  Be EXTREMELY careful when renting to friends.  It very easily could end up in a downward spiral and damage your relationships.

@Jaron Walling the rent is set by the market and $700 isn't high for the state of California and is likely a steal of a deal for a renter who doesn't want to rent a formal apartment.  For what it's worth, my basement rooms with full private baths currently go for $850 a month with utilities included.  Compare that to the nearest one bedroom apartment complex near me, charging $1250 a month not including any fees or utilities (that's nowhere near as bad as downtown!)......you see where the value really lies.  As the living and wage gasp increase, the value of single room renting does as well.

Jesse, as a house hacker, it depends on your exit timeline.  Be very careful with improvements.  You don't want to be the nicest house on the block.  Bring the home up to average finishes.  If you can cash flow and keep vacancy low, then maybe don't do anything at all.  Like Jaron said, there could be equity advantages to your improvements if done correctly but if you plan on living in the unit for a while, don't spend a dime unless you have to.  Adding more bedrooms could be beneficial to your cashflow but remember you are trading comfortability for profitability.

I have a six bedroom (househack) SFH where I rent out 4 of the rooms. Two of the rooms upstairs share a bathroom and I made the mistake of assuming that somehow, the tenants would figure it out amongst themselves to take care of it. I've had a few tiffs arise from each of the tenants. One of tenants takes, in my opinion, normal care of the bathroom and the other prefers it to be absolutely spotless and doesn't seem to grasp what he was getting into by sharing a bathroom. It turns out the only common/shared area of the house that I don't have an addendum for is their bathroom! I don't want to force either tenant to keep it spotless everyday as that seems very micromanage-y and overkill. Does anyone have some ironclad and logical rules that you have successfully used that I can add to an addendum to make their lives as well as my own easier?

Thank you in advance.  I love this forum!

Here is an amazing breakdown of what used to be a graphic but this person broke it down into a PDF version.  See if this is what you are looking for.

The poster:

https://www.amazon.com/Investor-Blueprint-Online-Estate-Training/dp/0615843700

The breakdown that's readable:

http://cathyswebsites.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/010-The-All-In-One-Investor-Blueprint.pdf

Purchased a 6 bedroom 4.5 bath SFH in last summer to attempt a house hack and to get more experience as a landlord. I'm sure Craig Curelop's book is great (I wish I had it back in August) but there are things that many people here on BP and Reddit don't really talk about or gloss over. Biggest advice is know what you're getting into and make sure you can trade comfortability/profitability. It was nerve wracking at first with advertising, renting, legal, etc etc but I'm cash flowing above the mortgage quite a bit. It's a good amount of people in the house so you definitely will be stressed/annoyed at times but a rock solid lease and a rules addendum for every area in the house where you could see conflict or issues is mandatory for your peace of mind. Be ready to treat it like a business. Just had my first "I want to leave, I don't like the guy I'm sharing a bathroom with" conversation and you gotta be ready to tell the tenant the lease is a binding agreement. Honestly, I think that is my biggest saving grace. My local apartment association supplied me with the lease and you'd be surprised what they've had to deal with and it shows in the lease. In six months, I've seen some weird things, had some disturbing moments, and you'd be suprised how "interesting" people really are. It's not what I consider totally passive income yet but I am living for free and it's a stepping stone to something down the road if I choose to move out. Good luck!

To follow up to the # of unrelated people in a home, I've followed up with the Utah Apartment Association and they said it's enforced differently in each city if at all and to call your local city's zoning office.

Yeah Cherie, it would be a good idea to do the cleaning myself since I'll be living less than an hour away.  Kill two birds with one stone!

Thank you, Tim, for the valuable insight and the great ideas.  I was also considering the cleaning service option as I could neatly fit the cleaning service into the monthly rent (or do it myself?) to reduce complications and headaches.

Cherie, thank you very much for explaining that strategy.  I enjoy reading your responses as I peruse the forums for discussions concering SLC.  I am interested in making it work and not selling in the short term considering the demand I predict as well as the appreciation in my area.  I will be sure to adopt some, if not all of the points you mentioned when I get to the next step! 

I've been trying to brainstorm ideas about what moving out of my SFH house hack would look like after a couple years. I purchased a SFH 6 bedrooms / 4.5 baths in Salt Lake county in the Silicon Slopes area with exploding growth and very expensive apartments. Currently, I rent to 4 tenants who rent out individual bedrooms. 2 of the bedrooms have private full baths in basement and the other two tenants share one full bath upstairs. The master bedroom is on the main floor off the kitchen area. The girlfriend also pitches in reduced rent to have a bedroom for her own guests/friends who visit. Everyone shares the kitchen, garage, and driveway. Rooms with bathrooms earn $750 - 850 / month depending on size and the rooms with shared bathrooms are a flat $750. Utilities are included in the rent to keep it easy.

I've been cash flowing ~$800-900 a month. Almost no vacancy, high demand for single room rentals.

I currently live in the master bedroom with my girlfriend. The gf isn't the biggest fan of having roomates (she's a team player but claims she can't do this for too long, OK) and we have begun tossing around the idea of moving to a different part of the city to another property with the intent to rent out a basement or ADU with more privacy for the two of us. I am adamant about not paying a dime for a mortgage but it's the same real estate investing with a significant other story. I am unsure how I will operate the house I currently own while living in a different residence.

Since I live on the property right now, it has been very easy to keep things clean, organized, monitored. When I move out, this will be more difficult but I foresee myself visiting the property every other month or so and coming up with creative ideas to keep things stable. Aside from the obvious advantages/disadvantages of being there vs. being somewhere else, has anyone else experienced this scenario? Did you continue to rent by the room? What are some issues I'm overlooking? How can I deal with common areas and rules if I'm not there but less than an hour away (asides from lease addendums with rules described). Part of me thinks it could work out well but the other side of me thinks it could be a horrible experience (concerned with tenant to tenant issues). If anyone has advice or personal experience phasing from a SFH, rent by the room, house hack scenario into a next step would be greatly appreciated!

I love this community thanks in advance!

Zayne, what style of investing are you considering (besides long distance)?  House hacking or purely an investment property or a multifamily purchase?  We need more info on your plan to give you more insight.