All Forum Posts by: Miller McSwain

@Pamela Winslow
You say that you must use FHA. Is there a reason that you cannot use a 5% down Conventional Loan? From what I've discerned in my use of it, it is better than FHA in almost every way:
1. With conventional, you can have multiple at once
2. You can get rid of PMI automatically when you reach 20% equity (with FHA you have to refinance)
3. Sellers/Agents view conventional more favorably since the inspection restrictions aren't as tight as FHA

So I'm curious why you must use FHA. Is it because you are doing multifamily? I think the down payment may be better for multis with FHA right?
Thanks!

We are currently house hacking, and we have 2 cats. Fortunately, we were able to separate the top and bottom levels, so our cats cannot get onto the tenant's level. So in this ideal case, we have pets on our level but don't allow the tenants to have pets.

Even if the levels weren't separated, we probably wouldn't allow the tenants to have pets, and we would just mention in the listing that there are currently cats that live in the house. I'd hate for someone to move in and have an allergy to pets, and they were unaware that pets would be in the house.

We are using the "rent-by-room" strategy, and we put electronic locks on all bedroom doors and the front door. Even if we were just renting to single tenant long-term, I would totally still use electronic locks.
Our locks allow us to remotely add a pin for a new resident, make temporary pins for handymen/contractors, etc. And we've had 7 locks in our property for a year now, and the lowest one is at 50% battery (shown in the app).

We looked for any lock that uses the "TTlock" app on Amazon. That way, all of our locks are in the same app and have the same functionality.

For exterior deadbolt locks (front door, garage door), we used this:
https://a.co/d/2SFMNcy

For normal interior locks (bedroom), we used something like this (the ones we have are currently unavailable, but this has similar capabilities):
https://a.co/d/8C6nYen

You can create codes from anywhere without the locks having internet connection because it can create them using an offline algorithm. But if you want to create specific codes with certain digits (instead of random), you either need to be close enough to the lock to use bluetooth or you need to have a gateway. The gateway is just a hub that all the locks connect to.

We are using this one, but there are other options:
https://a.co/d/0kEUCXv

I'm not sure exactly what your strategy is, but here is my list of sites for each strategy. I'm currently rent-by-rooming, so I haven't used all the sites listed. I just compiled this list for whenever I do use another strategy.

Traditional Long Term Rental:
- Zillow
- Realtor.com
- Hotpads
- FB Marketplace
- FB Groups
- Apartments.com
- Craigslist

Rent-by-room Rental:
- FB Marketplace
- FB Groups
- Zillow
- Roomies.com
- Roomiapp.com

Short-Term-Rental:
- Airbnb
- VRBO
- Flip Key
- Booking.com

Medium-Term Rental:
- Furnished Finders
- Kopa.co
- Airbnb (with 30 day minimum stay)

We are also using the rent by room strategy! We think it is best to post to lots of sites to bring the greatest amount of potentially qualifying leads in. Then you can select the very best tenant!

We post here for room rentals:
- FB Marketplace
- FB Groups
- Zillow
- Roomies.com
- Roomiapp.com
- Roomster.com (must pay to respond to inquiries)

I hope this helps 😊

We are using the "rent-by-room" strategy, and we put electronic locks on all bedroom doors and the front door. Our locks allow us to remotely add a pin for a new resident, make temporary pins for handymen/contractors, etc.

DISCLAIMER: I don't think the codes can be automatically changed when a new booking comes in. We are using for RbR, not STR. These are great though because you don't HAVE to have internet to remotely change codes (through an app, not automatically through AirBnb) because they run on an offline algorithm. Pretty cool

We looked for any lock that uses the "TTlock" app on Amazon. That way, all of our locks are in the same app and have the same functionality.

For exterior deadbolt locks (front door, garage door), we used this:
https://a.co/d/2SFMNcy

For normal interior locks (bedroom), we used something like this (the ones we have are currently unavailable, but this has similar capabilities):
https://a.co/d/8C6nYen

You can create codes from anywhere without the locks having internet connection because it can create them using an offline algorithm. But if you want to create specific codes with certain digits (instead of random), you either need to be close enough to the lock to use bluetooth or you need to have a gateway. The gateway is just a hub that all the locks connect to.

We are using this one, but there are other options:
https://a.co/d/0kEUCXv

We rent out furnished spaces on 6 month leases and mostly post to the typical long term rental listing sites. They usually have a checkbox for "furnished" when you are listing:

- Zillow
- Realtor.com
- Hotpads
- FB Marketplace
- FB Groups
- Apartments.com
- Craigslist

Hopefully that helps 😊

We are rent by room house hacking similar to your son. We don't have any issues renting the 2 rooms that share a bathroom, but there are some things we do to help with this.

1. The rent for the rooms with shared bathrooms is lower than the rooms with the private baths. So anyone who is looking to save more, obviously will consider opting for a shared bathroom.
2. Like you mentioned, we do pay for a house cleaner to clean all shared areas once per month (this includes the shared bathroom).
3. We provide all shared supplies for the house (trash bags, dish washing soap, etc). This includes toilet paper, hand soap, etc for the shared bathroom. This helps reduce some friction because tenants who share that bathroom don't fight about whose turn it is to buy the TP. Just don't buy single ply 😂

In our case, we are renting-by-the-room. We are living in our house-hack right now, but when we move out in a couple of months, we do plan on having the tenants do some of the touring.

I know a local investor who does exactly this. In order to reduce the amount of time she has to spend at the property, when a prospective bedroom tenant wants to tour, she has one of the existing residents tour them around. She doesn't financially compensate the current resident, she just said that the residents appreciate the opportunity to meet the prospect and have some say in if they get rented to.

So we will be doing something similar!

@Ryan Thomson

Great breakdown! Stoked to buy again at ~10% less purchase price when compared to last year!

@Linitha Tadsina

Cash flow is definitely tough to find here for a traditional long term rental. In my experience, you likely need to use an enhanced cash flow strategy if you need cash flow on day 1 (rent by room, medium term rental, short term rental)