Should I midterm rent single private rooms or the 5 bedroom house together on FF?

[Oscar Cortez]

Hi all,

I am currently house hacking my 5 bed 3 bath home with my wife and newborn on furnished finder. I started renovations last year and luckily was able to build a single wall to separate our side of the house (3 bedrooms, kitchen, living room, bathroom) from the master bedroom and another guest room essentially turning it into a makeshift 3 unit property. The 2 bedrooms we rent have their own private restrooms and makeshift kitchenettes although I did not get permits for anything since I was thinking of this time as a proof of concept. The guest bedroom was finished first and is now on its 3rd tenant having been rented consistently since January. The master bedroom was finished in May and took until August 1st to rent out. The 2 rents cover PITI but we pay for utilities.

Although its been great learning experience we plan on moving back to my wife's parents for help with the baby which brings me to the fork in the road.

I was going to rent our side 3bed 1 bath for about 2000 - 2500 as the comps on FF are about that for a 2-3 bedroom. The 2 guest bedrooms currently bring in 850 and 1000 so the total would be between 3850 - 4300. However the comps for a 4-5 bedroom 3 bath are about 4000 - 5000. So my concerns are the following:

Pros:
- More money
- 1 single party to deal with

Cons:
- Vacancies? (I feel like it would be harder to rent a whole house on midterm rather than individual rooms)
- Tenants will probably have kids and more wear and tear on the house?
- I like to use the detached garage as my storage and had plans on eventually making it an ADU and i feel that itd be easier to have tenants agree to me coming in and out of the garage if they are already sharing the property with other tenants rather than if I am renting the whole house to a single party.

What do yall think? Are there other pros and cons I can add to my list to help me decide? We plan on moving in November or December.

Thank you all

[Brett Deas]

I would say rent each room individually. For mid-term stays that FF is used for I have never seen a group bigger than 3 bedrooms, typically big families/groups aren't gonna be the target audience of something like that. 

That being said, 5 individual bedrooms can be alot, so make sure it clear what the house/rent situation is like on the listings. I'm not experienced enough to give more help on renting out individual rooms.