Thoughts on Renting Guest House on Property?

Question

Hi BP,

We have some property and are considering building a main house along with a guest house that we could rent (either long-term or short-term, which are both permitted by town).  A nearby neighbor has a 750sqft guest house renting for $2,250/month, which would be an excellent subsidy to our main house that we would build as our primary residence.

My wife is curious to hear from the BP community if you all would be hesitant to rent a home on your property if you have young kids at home.  Would you feel this is unsafe/undesirable to essentially have a stranger living on your property with you (short or long term)?  As we haven't done this before (our other rentals are not co-located with our primary residence), we would greatly appreciate your thoughts!

Thank you for your consideration.

Best,

Josh

Josh Corriveau · Answer

Hi Patricia and Scott,

Thank you for your feedback! I really appreciate your perspectives and will discuss further with my wife. We would be planning foR it to be a separate structure that would be fenced off from our private yard.

I agree with both of you regarding the importance of screening for a LT tenant.What are your thoughts regarding any advantages/disadvantages of having it geared more toward short-term rentals (town allows), so that we don’t have a permanent resident on the property?

Thank you!

Patricia Steiner · Answer

Many of my clients do exactly what you're proposing - and successfully without incident. Some have even rented to family friends and became a blended family/household.  I never have personally done this because of the issue your wife has raised and more.  My recommendation would be to have a separate walkway to the guest house and have a separation between the yard your children will use and that available to the tenants. One that a client recently purchased had been built to  have an entry leading off of the far side of the driveway into the guest house; it had a small courtyard in the rear accessible via french doors that was dedicated tenant space and did not provide access to the family's lanai and pool area.

There's a lot of ways to ensure your family's privacy and security while providing the tenant with the same.  I hope you'll let us know your decision...

Scott Savard · Answer

Josh,

From a financial standpoint, if the numbers work, this is a great idea. Though it seems from your comment, that you're more concerned about the safety of your children which is absolutely the priority. In this case, I'd recommend extensive screening and background checks.

Though that said, is there much of a difference between what you are doing and what others are doing with multifamily units and/or condos?

Thanks

Scott