All Forum Posts by: Nicole Marshall

I also rent out 3 bedrooms in my house, but I have leases with all 3 roommates. My roommates were not people I knew previously, but it will help you if anything were to go wrong in the future. Basically, it won't hurt, and it'll only help you to have leases. If your friends/brother ask why all of a sudden, I would just say what you mentioned about wanting to qualify your rental income towards another mortgage.

In regards to the rental income from roommates, I haven't gotten a definite answer on this. I believe you need to have 2 years of proven rental/landlord history, documented on your tax returns. Traceable income may suffice without a lease, but you do have the issue of not reporting the income on your taxes. This is also highly lender dependent. Some may count roommate rent, some may not. So you'll have to call around and see who will. I am also looking at this for buying a rental property, but haven't actively reached out to lenders since I don't have the down payment that I want yet.

Good luck!

@Leland S. Wow, those came out great! I am also running into an issue with removing carpet and stairs not being to code... Two staircases and ironically the engineered wood covered staircase was more off than the carpeted one. I had riser heights varying from 6" to 9" (on 4 steps!). Kind of annoyed that MY inspector didn't catch any of that.

In my house, I rent out the 3 upstairs bedrooms and live in the 1 downstairs bedroom. Essentially I live in the basement (it's a split level so the bottom floor is partially underground). I include the utilities in the rent as a flat fee, I don't split it up. My total utility bill (electricity, water/sewer, gas, and internet) comes to about $500/month (> 2000 sqft in Florida) averaged over the year, so I charge an extra $100 per person, which is included in the rent. It's easier this way, so tenants can properly plan their expenses instead of having to guess at what their total rent payment will be every month.

I would assume this has something to do with Hurricane Harvey. Most people that were affected didn't technically live in a flood zone and therefore didn't have flood insurance and they lost everything. I live a half-mile from the ocean, I don't live in a flood zone, but I still get flood insurance every year. Storm surge is considered flood water, so all it would take is one storm to ruin everything.

@Barb F. Definitely look into the notice period for non-renewal. I'm allowed 30 days, and I find that's usually enough time for people to find a new place. I specify that after the 3 month lease, it is month-to-month, and that tenant and landlord both have to give 30 days notice.

I have not had any issues legislating chores, though I do not share a bathroom with my roommates. Everyone seems to clean up after themselves fairly well, but I'm also not a super neat-freak. As long as you wipe down the counters, wash your own dishes, I'm content. I generally take care of taking the trash/recycling out.

You will learn things as you go along, so don't be afraid to add rules to the list. For instance, one of my roommates consistently parked too close to the mailbox, so the mail man stopped delivering mail. Common sense, but I had to put that in the house rules (not parking within 15 ft of the mailbox).

I rent out 3 bedrooms in my 4 bedroom house. All 3 bedrooms are upstairs and my room is downstairs. I made the mistake of installing laminate flooring upstairs (where there was old dingy carpet). Hinsight, I would have installed nice new carpet. It's a 1960 built house, so likely there was no insulation between floors. Even with the expensive underlayment, I can hear EVERYTHING. Short of tearing down the downstairs ceilings and installing soundproofing materials, there's nothing I can do. Ear plugs it is!

My advice would be to replace with carpet, OR require them to have thick area rugs in key areas. I have heard of apartment complexes including this in their leases.

Honestly, experience is the best teacher. However, to start, you can google something like "room rental lease" and pick which one you like best. I have a "house rules" section (mostly comprised "learning experiences" from prior roommates) that must be followed, or the tenant's lease can be terminated.

Definitely do a credit/background check. If they balk, definitely not the person you want to be living with. Cozy has a $40 credit/background check (I have the potential tenant pay, shows they're really interested in the room).

I also do minimum 3 months and then month to month after. 3 months usually gives you insight into a person's personality/quirks and you can decide if you like having them live there or not.

I use a modified lease agreement I found for renting out single bedrooms (you can just google room rental lease or something to that effect). I have a list of house rules, and I include that violation of any of the rules is grounds for lease termination. I actually did have to ask someone to leave that was being too loud, but I still gave him 30 days notice. He was a bit more courteous in his last 30 days (though not enough for me to consider letting him stay).

I rent out 3 bedrooms in my 4 bedroom house, so I've gone through quite a few roommates in the last couple years.

For advertising rooms, I use Craigslist, Zillow (Zillow will cross-post on other forums like Trulia, hotpads, etc, but won't actually list the room on Zillow), and my alma mater forum (I live close by to where I went to college). For actually screening applicants, I use Cozy for the credit/background check. The only issue I came across with Cozy was one applicant who had little to no credit history, so he couldn't complete the credit OR background check.

No, you cannot discriminate in this situation.

The only time you are legally allowed to discriminate is when you are renting out a room (or rooms) in your primary residence, in which you also live full-time. You are not allowed to advertise with a discriminatory angle, but you can discriminate once you get a pool of applicants.