All Forum Posts by: Maggie B.

I also had an experience with a tenant using an offhand comment on these forums to imply I was trying to do something illegitimate when I was just wondering and asking for information... It's good to know about options to keep our private considerations more private. Thanks for the tip!

Hi there guys, 

No big success story here. We didn't have much success with getting people to rent out single rooms. We had a ton of inquiries, but when we had an open house only one person showed up and then didn't apply. We think that our criteria was too stringent for single rooms for this area, but at the same time we were reluctant to change the criteria (income, credit, rental history was all reasonable). We have done more market research since then and realized that almost no one was renting out rooms like we were - mostly it was groups of people who were looking for a 4th roommate so that you already knew who you'd be sharing space with. Not putting a group of strangers together in a house. Looking back, that could have easily become very tricky.

We also realized that the place looked a little grungy, so we have been putting some effort into getting it spruced up a bit.

Currently the plan is to go the air bnb route. Given that we are a 10 minute walk from the metro and 6 miles from the Capitol, in theory we should have some good traffic, particularly during the warmer months. It will be a good experiment to see how much we can make vs a traditional rental. Other air bnb's in the area seem to be doing well, but we would have a competitive advantage of having a whole apartment to rent out vs most other people have just a room and bathroom. We have two two bedroom apartments (weird setup for a SFH, I know).

We haven't really gotten much done toward the rentals since we moved in. A series of things happened: 1) the contractor who was going to do the work to fix some things up had an accident (and he was just going to do the work himself for a lower rate as a friend, so no back up) 2) I got pregnant and have been completely sick for the past couple months and couldn't do much and 3) the holidays have been very busy with visitors, so we have used the extra space to host. 

I can update this thread once we get going though! Now that our contractor is better, I'm feeling better, and the holidays are over, we plan to have things ready to go by the end of the month.

Btw, we got a quote to separate the electric for the basement and it would be around $5000. Ouch! 

@Russell Brazil and @Cynthia Hartley, who did your work? Can you message me with the info on your electrician and who did your gas metering? The final quote actually just came back higher - at $4800 for the separate electrical meter, etc. I'm going to shop around a bit obviously, but my co worker said she got all her submetering done for around $3000 total, so I am a little surprised about how much this is running. The basement is finished already and has a separate entrance and high ceilings. 

Thanks for the advice @Jack P.. I'm not really worried about the cost of utilities as it would probably be around $50 vs $1700/mo rent - negligible in the grand scheme. My only concern about sub-metering is to make the rental legal. DC probably wouldn't find out about it, but we would have trouble if a tenant didn't pay and we had no way to evict from an illegal rental. 

If only I lived across the street in Maryland and then I could legally just build the utilities into the rent!

When you lived in a basement in DC, did you do anything to check if the unit was a legal rental? I'm curious from the renters perspective as I haven't been a renter in a while, but would have never thought to check back when I was.

Hi all, 

Just bought a SFH with a finished basement apartment in DC. We would like to get a CofO (which it seems almost no one actually does in DC!). This is looking pretty pricey the more I get quotes and I'd appreciate any advice from someone who has done this.

I was recently quoted $4000 just to separately meter the electrical. We have a 200amp service (more than enough for the needs of the house) and were told that to separately meter we would have to get a heavy up permit for 250amps and then install a separate sub-panel for 50 amps for the basement unit. Fortunately the wiring is already on separate circuits for the basement, so no re-wiring needed. 

I was told by a co-worker that we can install a submeter on the sinks and shower and then take readings ourselves and figure the bill for the tenant. She says that is what she does for her basement apartment (which she says has a CofO). 

Anyone know of companies that can do all the submetering? Or what else is required for the CofO? 

Thanks!

Hey there John, I highly recommend our agent Marc Dosik. He has done commercial work and worked with investors and homeowners like us. We just bought a house in DC for house hacking and he helped us out running rental comps, giving us resources for contractors, making our mortgage happen at rates we wanted, giving helpful suggestions for how to make the most money out of what we were buying and knowing the rental and real estate laws... he doesn't ever give pressure to make an offer or accept an offer (we are selling through him as well... the condo we bought through him 3 years ago). He just asks questions that we may want to consider which is very helpful. He works all over the DMV. Give him a call. He is always happy to just answer questions even if it doesn't lead anywhere at the moment.

thanks for the advice - particularly about having open houses. That would be very efficient. I'll advertise one coming up this Sunday.

We have it listed as individual rooms because: 

1) it's not a legal two family yet. We need to get the utilities submetered and don't have the extra cash to do it. Once we do that we will try to rent it as a full unit. Much simpler.

2) when I briefly listed it online as a full unit to "test the waters" before buying there were a lot of responses, but all were asking about housing vouchers. I'm on the fence about accepting housing vouchers for someone to live above me. Our realtor says we are allowed to discriminate based on income source if they are living in our home and if we have fewer than 4 rental units, but I need to call DCRA to verify. I figured we wouldn't get people using vouchers for single rooms.

3) our church and work networks are mostly made up of single people and we thought we would know more people interested in renting individual rooms. 

We are also considering doing air bnb if we can't find the right renters. Would love feedback on that if anyone has experiences with it!

Thanks for any additional advice!

Hi all, I am new to REI and am very skittish given I live in Washington DC (extremely tenant-friendly). I have heard my share of horror stories including a co-worker who spent 10 months trying to evict a tenant. My husband and I are trying to house-hack as part of our overall goal of FI. We just purchased a large SFH close to a metro with a basement apartment that we need to get sub-metered (not that big a deal, according to a friend who has done it) and we plan to rent the upper 4 bedrooms as individual rooms and live in the basement apartment.

We have been posting on zillow, cozy, and craigslist and have generally responded to inquiries with caution (asking for a pre-screening before even doing a showing) and would be grateful for any additional guidance. I am concerned that we are turning off perfectly reasonable tenants due to our cautiousness. The thing we want to avoid more than anything is having a non-paying tenant living above us who requires us to go through a prolonged eviction process which is more trouble in DC than most places. We have also posted at work and on our church bulletin boards to try to get trustworthy tenants. 

It isn't a problem to cover the full costs of the house, which is why we are erring on the side of caution. 

Any suggestions on how else to get good tenants as roommates? And any suggestions on how our process needs to run to enable us to get the good tenants and not turn them off, while turning off the bad ones? I've read the forums on how to do pre-screenings, but I think most DC landlords are not as rigorous and I think people may be irritated by having to fill out the screening form before a showing.