Hello Fellow landlord and property owners:

I am considering purchasing a nice SFH with 5 bedrooms / 1 bath with a pool in the backyard. I am considering renting out the property by the rooms (3 of rooms will have private entrance). All rooms are good sized and no consmetic work is needed interior. Yard is fairly spacious (double lot). Pool is currently closed but has a new liner and is in-ground.

I would imagine would require more oversight / upkeep / routine maintenance. I would want to rent the room on a monthly basis for single occupancy each room.

Can any other landlord share some insight on this practice?

Do a search on GKARL[PA] posts. He also rents by the room, and has many posts discussing his successes and failures. Hopefully he will also see your post and respond.

The only other thing I can add is that just about every landlord here will tell you to never rent out a property with - or allow a tenant to install - a pool. Whether in-ground or above ground. It is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Your plan to rent by the room may work fine, but seal off that pool. Make it physically impossible to get into it. That may your whole plan, but it is the only way you can sleep at night.

Good luck.

Martin [CO]

Check your town's zoning ordinances. For example, in Fort Worth, where I used to live, up to 5 unrelated people could live in one sfh... but closer to the University, it was zoned so that a max of 3 unrelated people could live in one sfh.

What size water heater do you have? Unless it's an on-demand water heater system, I'd be a little nervous about five people all wanting a shower, and the hot water running out around person #3.

See if you have the ability to add in another bath or half-bath to take some of the pressure off the main bathroom.

Check your local ordinances for rooming houses or lodging houses. Then check your ordinances for boarding houses (which provides meals), just to see what you need to be aware of.

Check your parking. Can five vehicles park without annoying each other? Can five vehicles park without annoying the neighbors?

Who's your target? Are you looking for invalids? For the elderly? For students? For single women? For single men? For the indigent? How will the five of them be non-toxic to each other, and you'll have a good group of tenants who can coexist in a small (shared) space?

What's your pet policy?

Will it be furnished?

Yeah, I don't see a 5 BR, 1 Bath working well for how you want to use it. People renting rooms will not want a shared bath.

5BR/1BA are basically always filled with huge families that tend to rip the place part.

MAYBE as an AirBNB sort of thing if you are in an area where that would work. But that's about it from my point of view.

I wish you luck though!

- John...

1 bath will not be enough especially if you have unrelated people in the rooms. Renting to a family will probably not be easy either. 1 bath with that many bedrooms is tough.

5 bedrooms

1 bath

pool

------

= Sure disaster

Part of making money is seeing opportunity where others lack vision. I'd try to see if this house could be made more economically desirable.

In my town a 5-bed, 1-bath house would be an anomaly, so much so that it likely wouldn't sell for very much. People these days value their privacy and space more than ever. I'd expect it to sell at least 40% if not more below it's fair market value with a more balanced mixture of space.

I am just thinking aloud...

Maybe this house can work as a daycare center...

One tenant, long term.

The most I have sharing on bathroom is 4. I'm thinking of setting the place up to give everyone their own bath on one particular floor as that would definitely decrease turnover. I'd lose one room, but more rent and less turnover would offset the cost room.

I agree with John, maybe an airbnb.

Having a pool would be a huge problem to me.

I also like Sids answer.

If it can be purchased really cheaply, perhaps convert one of the bedrooms to an additional bathroom, preferably a master suite, clean it up, paint and new flooring and flip it.