Is it legal to put a dividing wall(s) in a SFH to rent out a portion of it?

[David L.]

If I have a house that's too big for me and I want to househack and rent it out to a tenant but want privacy and no shared space, is it legal to put up a dividing wall and possibly another external door so the house is divided into two for more sound proofing and privacy?

I wouldn't be advertising it as a separate "unit", I would still have to split utilities with the tenant and share the garage and stuff but at least I won't have to be subject to living with someone that may be loud, annoying, etc.

Would the planning department even know or care if I put up an interior wall with no electrical/plumbing straight down the middle of a house (assuming the floor plan was suitable)?

This would be in the DFW area like Plano, etc. There are not many true multi or duplexes here so I figure if I'm going to rent a room out, I might as well do some basic minor modification and nothing too structural and no one would really care.

Anyone with experience with this?

I guess if I really think about it no one would really care. If I put up a listing for a roommate and it says 2bed/1ba in a house, the fact that it's extra private with a dividing wall would only be more incentive for someone to rent it. I wouldn't market it as a separate unit however or do anything different with mail or utilities. 

[Blake Novotney]

One of my best friends did exactly this with a bedroom / ensuite bathroom in his SFH. He didn't rent it out to a long-term tenant though, since there was no full kitchen. He put it up on Airbnb as a private room, and it paid the mortgage every month. Great strategy if you don't have a big enough supply of multifamily or it's too expensive like my market!