Dealing with a higher turnover rate in student rentals

[Eli Rollins]

Hi there! So I’ve been thinking about doing a student rental/ house hack hybrid where I rent by the room and live in one room or the living room. One thing I’ve had to keep in mind is a higher turnover rate since I would be dealing with collage kids. How could I budget for this in my analysis other than a higher vacancy rate?

[James Wise]

Originally posted by @Eli Rollins:

Hi there! So I’ve been thinking about doing a student rental/ house hack hybrid where I rent by the room and live in one room or the living room. One thing I’ve had to keep in mind is a higher turnover rate since I would be dealing with collage kids. How could I budget for this in my analysis other than a higher vacancy rate?

 When you're renting properties to college students living near campus you'll need to run your numbers assuming that they will be staying for approx 9 months to run in line with the school year. You'll likely be placing new tenants every school year.

Another thing I'd think about if I were you would be renting out the entire home, not by the room. Put it on the groups of students to figure out who gets what room and who pays what portion of the rent. No reason you need to be involved with that. You'll get groups of 3-4 students who will come to you and you'll make one lease. If 100% of the rent isn't paid 100% of those kids get evicted. The details get handled between the roommates when they realize all of them are getting evicted because Johnny didn't pay his 25% of the rent that month.