rent by the room
New to Real Estate 路 Schaumburg, IL 路 Member since 2023 路 23 posts 路 18 votes
rent by the room
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Miller McSwainPro Member
Investor 路 Colorado Springs, CO 路 Member since 2018 路 261 posts 路 234 votesRent by room has been amazing for us! Our 5 bedroom home would likley rent for ~$2k as a traditional long term rental, but we get $3750/month by renting by the room!
In our case, we are in a market with lots of young professionals and military (engineers, accountants, service members). They have mostly been young guys (in their 20's) looking to save money.
To determine what to list at, we checked the listing sites we used and looked for similar offerings (Roomies.com, Facebook Marketplace, Roomster.com, etc). We ended up setting our first room a bit higher than we expected, then just lowered the rent every week until we started getting a lot of bites. Now we know the right rate ($750/month in our city)!
29 Replies
- Investor 路 Austin, TX 路 Member since 2021 路 9k+ posts 路 5k+ votes3y
There is demand for this, the market you are in dictates what your rental pool looks like. Target areas with companies aggressively hiring college graduates, your rental pool will improve.
- Real Estate Agent 路 Chicago, IL 路 Member since 2018 路 1k+ posts 路 1k+ votes3y
College towns or big cities seem like the best markets to make rent by room work. In a bigger city housing costs are generally higher so you'll get a larger pool of (younger) people looking for more affordable options like rent by room. As opposed to suburbs where generally you're going to see a higher % of homeownership.
I know there is a section about the rent by room strategy in the book "The House Hacking Strategy". Consider picking up that book.
- Real Estate Agent 路 Member since 2018 路 459 posts 路 414 votes3y
I think it depends on your local market. Yes, college towns or cities looking to hire college graduates makes sense. But I think that's a piece of the pie: there are more audiences out there needing/wanting to rent by the room. I have a client who does this model in oil fields in Texas and is making a killing doing it because they are so short in housing to place these oil rig workers. And they're paying more than most professional fields pay. So it's up to you: look at your local market and find out how you can serve it.
As far as if this is a good way to get started or if it is too much: you won't know until you find out. I have a client who just bought their first home and he's prepping the house to rent out the rooms to traveling nurses. We won't know if he likes it until a year into it.
If you are wanting to find out how much to rent, look at Zillow rentals, apartments.com, facebook marketplace, and see what's going on. Listings that have been on the market for a few weeks might be listed too high. Then verify your findings by contacting property managers, talking to other investors in your area, etc. Do some research and find out what makes sense for your rooms. It can change depending on proximity to work, amenities, etc.
Hope that answers some of your questions!
- 3yRyan ThomsonBusiness MemberReal Estate Agent 路 Colorado Springs, CO 路 Member since 2018 路 1k+ posts 路 1k+ votes
This is how I did my first two house hacks (along with converting a garage to rent separately) from the main house. Bedroom rentals is a great way to start and one of the easiest.
Markets with student rentals or lots of young professionals will work best.
Look at other bedrooms for rent. Ask what people renting bedrooms are paying. Pick a price and see if you get any hits. If not, lower the price. If too many, consider raising.
The Assumable Guy544 Reviews - Real Estate Agent 路 Seattle, WA 路 Member since 2017 路 150 posts 路 80 votes3y
Renting by the room definitely still works! I would check your local facebook group or even craigslist to see the current demand first. I did rent by the room for my first property and was able to cover a big portion of my mortgage by house-hacking.
- 3yMiller McSwainPro MemberInvestor 路 Colorado Springs, CO 路 Member since 2018 路 261 posts 路 234 votes
Rent by room has been amazing for us! Our 5 bedroom home would likley rent for ~$2k as a traditional long term rental, but we get $3750/month by renting by the room!
In our case, we are in a market with lots of young professionals and military (engineers, accountants, service members). They have mostly been young guys (in their 20's) looking to save money.
To determine what to list at, we checked the listing sites we used and looked for similar offerings (Roomies.com, Facebook Marketplace, Roomster.com, etc). We ended up setting our first room a bit higher than we expected, then just lowered the rent every week until we started getting a lot of bites. Now we know the right rate ($750/month in our city)! - 3yJohn MorganPro MemberRental Property Investor 路 Grand Prairie, TX 路 Member since 2018 路 2k+ posts 路 2k+ votes
@Luke Okane
I鈥檝e got 3 houses I rent by the room in ft worth. It鈥檚 easy to self manage. Check fb marketplace for the going rate. I average around $800 per room. The rooms with private bathrooms get $1000-$1175/month. I pay all the utilities and just hope these people don鈥檛 kill each other. Lol
- Investor 路 San Diego, CA 路 Member since 2016 路 1k+ posts 路 975 votes3y
@Luke Okane I think its a good strategy for beginners. Check out Sam Wegert's bigger pockets episode for more insight on the co-living strategy. He also has a facebook group where folks chat about co-living and share tips.
Good luck!
- 3ySimmy AhluwaliaPro MemberLender 路 Atlanta, GA 路 Member since 2015 路 1k+ posts 路 200 votes
We are working on a new construction co-living project in Atlanta metro in a high demographic area. The property will be 23 bath and 23 bedrooms. Targeting an upscale 20-30 something tenant base. Avg. rents $1,075 - 1,175 per month. Avg room size - 220 sf
Low end Rent per sf = $4.88
- Realtor 路 Sacramento, CA 路 Member since 2019 路 242 posts 路 152 votes3y
We rent by the bedroom in Roseville California and have had a great experience! We make $4,500 in rent from our 5 bedrooms. We aren't particularly close to any major college and still get steady renters. We use websites like roomies.com and Facebook marketplace to see what other people are renting their rooms out for.
- 3yDaniel Beltran-VillegasPro MemberRental Property Investor 路 Fort Worth, TX 路 Member since 2021 路 3 posts 路 3 votes
Quote from @John Morgan:
@Luke Okane
I鈥檝e got 3 houses I rent by the room in ft worth. It鈥檚 easy to self manage. Check fb marketplace for the going rate. I average around $800 per room. The rooms with private bathrooms get $1000-$1175/month. I pay all the utilities and just hope these people don鈥檛 kill each other. Lol
We're neighbors! I am currently house hacking in Fort Worth, renting out rooms in my house.
I am having issues with finding quality renters, though. What kind of rental criteria do you use, and how do you handle folks with dubious credit history?
- 3yJohn MorganPro MemberRental Property Investor 路 Grand Prairie, TX 路 Member since 2018 路 2k+ posts 路 2k+ votesI don鈥檛 care about people鈥檚 credit history. My best tenants have credit scores in the 500鈥檚 so I don鈥檛 go by that. I鈥檝e got a few with felonies that have been great too. I ask if they have any felonies or evictions. If they鈥檙e honest and their background check comes back with what they said, then I鈥檒l consider each person based off my gut feeling. My best tenants seem to be people looking for someone to give them a second chance.
Quote from @Daniel Beltran-Villegas:
Quote from @John Morgan:
@Luke Okane
I鈥檝e got 3 houses I rent by the room in ft worth. It鈥檚 easy to self manage. Check fb marketplace for the going rate. I average around $800 per room. The rooms with private bathrooms get $1000-$1175/month. I pay all the utilities and just hope these people don鈥檛 kill each other. Lol
We're neighbors! I am currently house hacking in Fort Worth, renting out rooms in my house.
I am having issues with finding quality renters, though. What kind of rental criteria do you use, and how do you handle folks with dubious credit history?
How many rooms are you renting out? Is this a house? - 3yDaniel Beltran-VillegasPro MemberRental Property Investor 路 Fort Worth, TX 路 Member since 2021 路 3 posts 路 3 votes
Quote from @John Morgan:
I don鈥檛 care about people鈥檚 credit history. My best tenants have credit scores in the 500鈥檚 so I don鈥檛 go by that. I鈥檝e got a few with felonies that have been great too. I ask if they have any felonies or evictions. If they鈥檙e honest and their background check comes back with what they said, then I鈥檒l consider each person based off my gut feeling. My best tenants seem to be people looking for someone to give them a second chance.Quote from @Daniel Beltran-Villegas:
Quote from @John Morgan:
@Luke Okane
I鈥檝e got 3 houses I rent by the room in ft worth. It鈥檚 easy to self manage. Check fb marketplace for the going rate. I average around $800 per room. The rooms with private bathrooms get $1000-$1175/month. I pay all the utilities and just hope these people don鈥檛 kill each other. Lol
We're neighbors! I am currently house hacking in Fort Worth, renting out rooms in my house.
I am having issues with finding quality renters, though. What kind of rental criteria do you use, and how do you handle folks with dubious credit history?
How many rooms are you renting out? Is this a house?Thanks for the answer!
I'm a new landlord, so I do not have a well developed gut feeling for prospective tenants.
I have a house, 4/2, I live in one room and rent out the other 3. Right now I have 2 tenants: a law student, and a travel nurse.
I have been trying to fill my last vacancy, and needing to streamline my process when the eventual turnover occurs so I can fill vacancies much faster than what I do today.
- Contractor 路 Phoenix, AZ 路 Member since 2021 路 26 posts 路 14 votes3y
Quote from @Nicole Masters:
We rent by the bedroom in Roseville California and have had a great experience! We make $4,500 in rent from our 5 bedrooms. We aren't particularly close to any major college and still get steady renters. We use websites like roomies.com and Facebook marketplace to see what other people are renting their rooms out for.
Hi Nicole! Do you run into "unrelated" tenants ordinances in your city where you rent by room? - 3yJohn MorganPro MemberRental Property Investor 路 Grand Prairie, TX 路 Member since 2018 路 2k+ posts 路 2k+ votesIt helps that you live there. I just throw 5 random people in a house and hope they don鈥檛 kill each other. Lol. Last night, one tenant complained that two tenants were running around the house being loud and wrestling (a girl and a guy who barely know each other) and that caused the dogs in a bedroom from another tenant to bark non stop. I get random texts like this all the time. Lol
Quote from @Daniel Beltran-Villegas:
Quote from @John Morgan:
I don鈥檛 care about people鈥檚 credit history. My best tenants have credit scores in the 500鈥檚 so I don鈥檛 go by that. I鈥檝e got a few with felonies that have been great too. I ask if they have any felonies or evictions. If they鈥檙e honest and their background check comes back with what they said, then I鈥檒l consider each person based off my gut feeling. My best tenants seem to be people looking for someone to give them a second chance.Quote from @Daniel Beltran-Villegas:
Quote from @John Morgan:
@Luke Okane
I鈥檝e got 3 houses I rent by the room in ft worth. It鈥檚 easy to self manage. Check fb marketplace for the going rate. I average around $800 per room. The rooms with private bathrooms get $1000-$1175/month. I pay all the utilities and just hope these people don鈥檛 kill each other. Lol
We're neighbors! I am currently house hacking in Fort Worth, renting out rooms in my house.
I am having issues with finding quality renters, though. What kind of rental criteria do you use, and how do you handle folks with dubious credit history?
How many rooms are you renting out? Is this a house?Thanks for the answer!
I'm a new landlord, so I do not have a well developed gut feeling for prospective tenants.
I have a house, 4/2, I live in one room and rent out the other 3. Right now I have 2 tenants: a law student, and a travel nurse.
I have been trying to fill my last vacancy, and needing to streamline my process when the eventual turnover occurs so I can fill vacancies much faster than what I do today.
- Realtor 路 Sacramento, CA 路 Member since 2019 路 242 posts 路 152 votes3y
Quote from @Vicente Ter谩n:
There is an ordinance in our area, but we have enough parking and we never create a disturbance so we haven't run into any issues as of yet!Quote from @Nicole Masters:
We rent by the bedroom in Roseville California and have had a great experience! We make $4,500 in rent from our 5 bedrooms. We aren't particularly close to any major college and still get steady renters. We use websites like roomies.com and Facebook marketplace to see what other people are renting their rooms out for.
Hi Nicole! Do you run into "unrelated" tenants ordinances in your city where you rent by room? - 2yWaylon Bruce MoorePro MemberMember since 2023 路 33 posts 路 8 votes
Quote from @Miller McSwain:
Rent by room has been amazing for us! Our 5 bedroom home would likley rent for ~$2k as a traditional long term rental, but we get $3750/month by renting by the room!
In our case, we are in a market with lots of young professionals and military (engineers, accountants, service members). They have mostly been young guys (in their 20's) looking to save money.
To determine what to list at, we checked the listing sites we used and looked for similar offerings (Roomies.com, Facebook Marketplace, Roomster.com, etc). We ended up setting our first room a bit higher than we expected, then just lowered the rent every week until we started getting a lot of bites. Now we know the right rate ($750/month in our city)!I'm in Tampa and have a smilar situtation. I am finding a lot of pushback from people that like the photos but then realize it is a "rent by the room" / co-living house and want their "privacy". Any thoughts?
- 2yJohn MorganPro MemberRental Property Investor 路 Grand Prairie, TX 路 Member since 2018 路 2k+ posts 路 2k+ votesI get people seeing my ads wanting to rent the whole house out. Or ask how much. Lol. There鈥檚 a demand for individual rooms being rented out. I did it in my 20鈥檚 to save money. I loved it and it worked out. That鈥檚 what gave me the idea to do it. I have 3 houses I do this with and list the rooms on fb marketplace. I bought these houses within the last year or two so I鈥檓 new at it. My tenants all get along and the homes are very clean every time I pop in to collect rent in my lock boxes some people drop cash in. My net cash flow after all expenses is around $1500-$1800 on each of them. My normal rentals only make around $500-$600/month when I first buy them so I鈥檓 making about triple the amount which is a lot for me.
Quote from @Waylon Bruce Moore:
Quote from @Miller McSwain:
Rent by room has been amazing for us! Our 5 bedroom home would likley rent for ~$2k as a traditional long term rental, but we get $3750/month by renting by the room!
In our case, we are in a market with lots of young professionals and military (engineers, accountants, service members). They have mostly been young guys (in their 20's) looking to save money.
To determine what to list at, we checked the listing sites we used and looked for similar offerings (Roomies.com, Facebook Marketplace, Roomster.com, etc). We ended up setting our first room a bit higher than we expected, then just lowered the rent every week until we started getting a lot of bites. Now we know the right rate ($750/month in our city)!I'm in Tampa and have a smilar situtation. I am finding a lot of pushback from people that like the photos but then realize it is a "rent by the room" / co-living house and want their "privacy". Any thoughts?
- Member since 2021 路 43 posts 路 28 votes2y
Quote from @Dennis Nguyen:
Renting by the room definitely still works! I would check your local facebook group or even craigslist to see the current demand first. I did rent by the room for my first property and was able to cover a big portion of my mortgage by house-hacking.
When you did rent by the room where you renting long term or short term?
- Realtor 路 Greater Tampa Bay 路 Member since 2014 路 219 posts 路 130 votes2yAre you going through a marketplace or listing them yourself? I have some roomshare tips as I help investors with padsplit properties.
Quote from @Waylon Bruce Moore:
Quote from @Miller McSwain:
Rent by room has been amazing for us! Our 5 bedroom home would likley rent for ~$2k as a traditional long term rental, but we get $3750/month by renting by the room!
In our case, we are in a market with lots of young professionals and military (engineers, accountants, service members). They have mostly been young guys (in their 20's) looking to save money.
To determine what to list at, we checked the listing sites we used and looked for similar offerings (Roomies.com, Facebook Marketplace, Roomster.com, etc). We ended up setting our first room a bit higher than we expected, then just lowered the rent every week until we started getting a lot of bites. Now we know the right rate ($750/month in our city)!I'm in Tampa and have a smilar situtation. I am finding a lot of pushback from people that like the photos but then realize it is a "rent by the room" / co-living house and want their "privacy". Any thoughts?
- Investor 路 Tampa, FL 路 Member since 2020 路 287 posts 路 152 votes2y
Hey Luke, I've rented by the room in Tampa and it works very well. It is ideal in highly desirable city limits such as Tampa or a place like Austin Tx where people need something affordable and safe but want to centrally located. You can get quality guests/tenants for good rates and it can be a very good investing style when done right. Play around on Airdna or price labs to see what a private room would get per month, you can use this as a ballpark number to gage what you should rent for. As far as people, you want to make sure there is plenty of amenities for everyone and not overcrowded, determine how many people you want per bathroom and what is overcrowded for the kitchen.
- 2yJeff SullivanPro MemberRental Property Investor 路 Dothan, AL 路 Member since 2020 路 32 posts 路 10 votes
I have an STR just of campus at a major univeristy. I am considering converting to rent by the room student housing (its a 4/2). Any special language in the rental agreemnt that I need to include to govern use of common areas, tenant conflicts, etc? Thanks!
- 2yJohn MorganPro MemberRental Property Investor 路 Grand Prairie, TX 路 Member since 2018 路 2k+ posts 路 2k+ votesI make all mine month to month and everyone seems to respect each other and keeping the common areas clean. If someone is a problem, then I non renew them. And I鈥檝e only had to do that once because the guy had his leg amputated and couldn鈥檛 get around the house safely.
Quote from @Jeff Sullivan:
I have an STR just of campus at a major univeristy. I am considering converting to rent by the room student housing (it's a 4/2). Any special language in the rental agreemnt that I need to include to govern use of common areas, tenant conflicts, etc? Thanks!
- Realtor 路 Greater Tampa Bay 路 Member since 2014 路 219 posts 路 130 votes2y
Quote from @John Morgan:
I make all mine month to month and everyone seems to respect each other and keeping the common areas clean. If someone is a problem, then I non renew them. And I鈥檝e only had to do that once because the guy had his leg amputated and couldn鈥檛 get around the house safely.Quote from @Jeff Sullivan:
I have an STR just of campus at a major univeristy. I am considering converting to rent by the room student housing (it's a 4/2). Any special language in the rental agreemnt that I need to include to govern use of common areas, tenant conflicts, etc? Thanks!
Lol you're saying you nonrenewed an amputee? Brutal. Actually sounds kinda like some sort of fair housing violation 馃槵
- 2yJohn MorganPro MemberRental Property Investor 路 Grand Prairie, TX 路 Member since 2018 路 2k+ posts 路 2k+ votes
His room was downstairs and the bathroom was upstairs. He鈥檚 in a wheelchair now and I told him I couldn鈥檛 afford to put in an elevator for him. I could probably be sued for not accommodating him but there鈥檚 also more to the story. He really needs to be in a hospital. He has other medical issues and we鈥檝e had to call 911 on him for falling at least 7 times.
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