Rent by the room Leases/ rules

[Lynn Joachim]

Hello! 

I'm Lynn. My husband and I are health providers and rookie real estate investors. Prior to our wedding this year, we each purchased a multi-family (2 units each, 4 doors total between the 2 of us). This helped us benefit from the first time homebuyer programs that were available to us. I

work 1.5 hours away from home and house hack one of the properties while he house hacks the one in Portland. We plan on doing this for a year (3 months in so far). The hope is for me to move to Portland full-time next year and purchase a thirds multi-family together to further grow our portfolio. 

My question is regarding renting by the room. We want to do furnished room rentals for one of the units in Portland. 

      -  Are there any lease examples that anyone could share with us?  

      - What are some key items that I should include in the lease?

     - PadSplit is currently not active in Maine, what other websites can we use to list the rooms?

   - Any other advise/ things that we should keep in mind? 

[Drew Sygit]

What are you expecting regarding tenant quality?

Padsplit claims they get great tenants that are "young professionals", but several have posted here on BP that it's not always the case.

Depends on your job & housing markets, the property location and how nice it is.

Regarding a lease, you can use a pretty standard lease.
Any unique language will actually depend on the shared spaces of the property itself and what you plan to provide:
- Utilities?
- Shared bathrooms?
- Shared kitchen, fridge, etc.?
- Shared living room, TV, etc.?
- Shared laundry?
- Shared storage?
- Shared parking?

You'll want to create House Rules around:
- Cleaning up after yourself
- Respecting private access areas
- Shower time limits
- Leaving laundry in the machines, so others can't use
- Not boxing each other in when parking
- Etc.

Maybe get a lease from college shared housing and copy what applies.