All Topics / Creative Investing / Renting Share houses

Viewing 19 posts - 1 through 19 (of 19 total)
  • Profile photo of Tysonboss1Tysonboss1
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    @tysonboss1
    Join Date: 2007
    Post Count: 306

    G'day ALL,

    I have been thinking about a few different options when it comes to getting more rent from my properties, and was just wondering if any body on this forum has rented a house by the room,

    I have a three bedroom house that I am currently getting $220/ week for and I was thinking about renting it as a share house for $110 a rrom, I would love to here from any body who has attempted this kind of thing before, I think with housing afforabilty the way it is this kind of thing might become more common. 

    Profile photo of XeniaXenia
    Member
    @xenia
    Join Date: 2002
    Post Count: 1,231

    Yes, over 20 times now!
    Be careful though, I have seen rents imporove by $300 per week profit and I have seen them decline due to increased vacancies. Remember that renting by the room is a "tool" to be used in the right circumstances and just like you can't use a hammer for every job, it cannot improve rental yields on every property. The property needs to be in:
    A lower rent area (if you can get high rent by traditional means, why bother?)
    Close to universities and facilities.
    Have more than 3 bedrooms (if you are going to go throught the expense of furnishing and providing utilities why not go for the max number of tenancies allowed by council regulations?)
    Be in great condition (run down houses do not rent well by the room!)
    Also, you need to have a good exit strategy if it dosent work out!

    Profile photo of Jase and FlicJase and Flic
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    @jase-and-flic
    Join Date: 2004
    Post Count: 190

    Hi adprop
    could you elaborate on exit strategies? What ideas have you used, or would you use??

    Profile photo of XeniaXenia
    Member
    @xenia
    Join Date: 2002
    Post Count: 1,231

    By exit strategies I mean what would you do if the student accomodation scenario does not work. You need to be able to afford to hold the property on a normal rental yield so you need to know what it's market rent would be.
    Or you need to work out your profit target if you need to sell.

    Exit strategies are different for everyone.

    Profile photo of WintertailWintertail
    Member
    @wintertail
    Join Date: 2007
    Post Count: 5

    Currently doing the same thing.
    I have a house in melbourne that could be rented for $350 /week as a whole, currently being rented on roomy basis. $110 /week. 4 bedrooms, 5 minutes walk from a uni.

    Pros:
    – Better return, thats all

    Cons:
    – 4 times the efforts and paperwork.
    – High maintenance, they would never clean the common areas as they think its not their responsibility
    – High turnover, as u know student come and go. (it would be better to get professional / people with job)
    – Low income earners, if they can only afford to rent a room, sometime they cant afford at all.
    – Higher Insurance premium (Make sure u notify or discuss with your insurance about this changes, to get it covered)
    – Bills, bills, bill, how you work this one out? on share bills or that price including bill.  If that price is including bills, expect to spend around $20/room/week on all bills. They never care about bills once it is included, they may go out and never turn off anything, heater might on 24/7.  If its on share bill basis, its hard to calculate the bills with people come and go and bill may not arrive by the time someone leave. And never open the phone line on your name, they could make thousand dollars phone call and suddenly dissapear.
    – Hard to trace damages on common areas

    Considered:
    – Rental market is currently scarce, you can get 98-100%occupancy /year if you rent the whole house.
    – Using agency that specialized in this field, they normally charge 10-15% management fee. 6-7% to rent the whole house.
    – For me, once I got all the rooms filled in for about 3 months, I asked if they want to rent the whole house together,
     reduce the rent by 10%, prepare new contract, and let them worried about the bills them self.

    So if you prepare to do the extra work for the extra return, go for it.

    Profile photo of ElseElse
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    @else
    Join Date: 2007
    Post Count: 25

    @wintertail: enlightening post – i'd wondered about doing something like this myself.  Seems like peril at every turn.  I rent at the moment and am thinking about looking for a 3 bed place (to buy) and renting out the remaining 2 rooms to offset repayments.  I haven't found a suitable place, but my eye's open.

    Profile photo of mtajimmtajim
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    @mtajim
    Join Date: 2007
    Post Count: 17

    If you rent the rooms separately , then you may have to deal with three different       people and it may create problem sometime. I would better give all  the room to one person .

    Profile photo of Mortgage HunterMortgage Hunter
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    @mortgage-hunter
    Join Date: 2003
    Post Count: 3,781

    I managed to squeeze five rooms into my place and that extra $120 a week makes it worth it for me.  I wouldn't think it was worth the effort for just 4 people.

    Cheers

    Profile photo of Pro investorPro investor
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    @pro-investor
    Join Date: 2003
    Post Count: 108

    Hi everyone

                         I have a mate that does this he buys big houses near the centre of town with 5-6 bedrooms that would rent for $350 a week and then does them up and rents the rooms out for $150 a week and he does very well out of it.

    Thanks Rob

    Profile photo of devo76devo76
    Member
    @devo76
    Join Date: 2007
    Post Count: 542

    There is a house in my town  that has four bedrooms,three bathrooms,a sun room, Then out the back is a self contained granny flat with another big room with water connected above it. All have there own entrance. Asking $400,000 but has a lot of potential.Centrally located too.

    Profile photo of PeteJackiePeteJackie
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    @petejackie
    Join Date: 2003
    Post Count: 121

    I've been looking at doing similar, near a uni, however any property managers I have talked to don't seem too keen on the idea.
    Understandably it's more work for them.

    Has anyone struck a similar problem with property managers and renting per room?

    Cheers,
    Pete

    Profile photo of young investor01young investor01
    Member
    @young-investor01
    Join Date: 2007
    Post Count: 52

    renting rooms sounds good but to stress the point again, it would need to be near a large work/or study facility eg. uni a public hospital etc. Then again i was thinking of Armidale NSW , using the Uni of New England students – but then again its hard dealing we four-five highly stressed out uni students- there are it's pros and cons for sure.

    Profile photo of PandaQiQiPandaQiQi
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    @pandaqiqi
    Join Date: 2007
    Post Count: 12

    Hi All,

    I've done something similar. Have 1IP across Monash Uni, 3 bd. Good thing is the rental return is better than renting a whole house.

    CONS is you have to make sure your tenants can get on well with one another. Else your house will end up like a mess b/c everyone refuse to clean.

    Be careful if you are renting across uni, I found many students will "sub-let" your lounge without letting you know. I.e putting partition in the lounge to create two rooms and then renting it cheaply to other students.

    I now have a very trusted, long term tenant to look after my lease for two other rooms and he had a say whenever I get another tenant in the house. Still better return compare to renting a whole house.

    panda

    Profile photo of carlincarlin
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    @carlin
    Join Date: 2005
    Post Count: 211

    Hi there – we have a place that we rent out by the room. Is working OK, but you do need to have the time (and energy) to do more work (ie: maintenance, gardening, sorting out household "issues" etc). We manage it ourselves, so priority if doing this is not only to have it somewhere where people want to rent by the room, but also somewhere close to your home.

    Anyway – we've struck a snag. We want to buy another place and do the same thing BUT our lender has told us they won't lend for a serviced apartment or serviced house – classified as "ineligible security". This is despite us having a 2 year track record of making this work. All our loans (PPOR + 3IPs) are with this lender. I was told that – had they known we were going to turn one of our places into a serviced house – they would not have approved the loan. They base their sums on what the house would achieve as a standard rental.

    Has anyone else encountered a lender with this policy of not lending for serviced accommodation (or have we just got a very conservative lender)?

    We plan to refinance, but want to know if we're likely to strike the same problem with lots of other lenders.

    thanks for any help on this.

    Carlin

    Profile photo of kaz101kaz101
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    @kaz101
    Join Date: 2005
    Post Count: 45

    Have you tried doing house shares with professionals? We've done this in the UK but not in Australia (yet!).

    The house is a smart, new house and would usually rent out for 900 GBP but we get 1500 GBP but letting out the rooms individually. We pay for a cleaner to the communal areas once a week, and we pay the utilities. Obviously you have to work out that you are going to make a positive cashflow after those extra expenses. The house is near a university, close to the town centre, airport and business parks so that if we can't get professionals we have other tenant pools around. That has worked very well for us there.

    Profile photo of princesshayleyprincesshayley
    Member
    @princesshayley
    Join Date: 2007
    Post Count: 14

    I have been renting out spare rooms in the house I live in for the last 2 years.  Given largely due to the arease but I have had hassle after hasle after hassle.  One fellow was only here for 3 weeks and because I was working full time at that stage I wasn't home much.  when I finally got a day off I was woken by 5 police officers with a search warrant as this darling cherrub was dealing drugs from my house while I was at work.  Luckily I wasn't dragged into it all but as a result it's on my house's record and I'm now known as a drug house by local police.  i've also had a paint sniffing couple who lasted 4 days and various other weirdos who appear normal until the week after they move in. 

    aside from that I have had possibly the grubbiest people in the world here.  None of them respect your property as most of them will never have property of their own.  Overall I don't think the profits made were nearly enough to cover the damage to my possesions or house reputation. 

    It's because of this I would be VERY warey of who you get in.  make sure you trust your property managers instinct and make sure they check their references.

    I will also add that I'm reletivley new to all of this and I'm sure most of the mistakes could have been avoided by a more experienced person.

    Goood Luck

    Hayley

    Profile photo of kaz101kaz101
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    @kaz101
    Join Date: 2005
    Post Count: 45
    princesshayley wrote:
    I. when I finally got a day off I was woken by 5 police officers with a search warrant as this darling cherrub was dealing drugs from my house while I was at work. Luckily I wasn't dragged into it all but as a result it's on my house's record and I'm now known as a drug house by local police. i've also had a paint sniffing couple who lasted 4 days and various other weirdos who appear normal until the week after they move in.

    aside from that I have had possibly the grubbiest people in the world here. None of them respect your property as most of them will never have property of their own. Overall I don't think the profits made were nearly enough to cover the damage to my possesions or house reputation.

    It's because of this I would be VERY warey of who you get in. make sure you trust your property managers instinct and make sure they check their references.

    I will also add that I'm reletivley new to all of this and I'm sure most of the mistakes could have been avoided by a more experienced person.

    Goood Luck

    Hayley

    Wow Hayley! How do you chose your tenants? This is actually a serious question. When I'm letting out by the room because I only deal with professionals I'm actually interviewing them to see if they are suitable for the property. I also get a credit check carried out on them.

    I once had one guy who just spooked me. My husband wasn't around at that interview and I wasn't sure about letting the room to him. We needed the money but I wanted a happy house too. Anyway I was talking to a friendly letting agent and he mentioned this weird bloke who had spooked his receptionist, and I checked the name. It was the same guy! He didn't get the room and I learnt to trust my instincts!

    It doesn't mean that it will always go right, but it cuts down the chances of it going wrong.

    How do other people check their tenants?

    Profile photo of princesshayleyprincesshayley
    Member
    @princesshayley
    Join Date: 2007
    Post Count: 14

    The worst people i've gotten were from advertising on realestate.com, after the druggo and the paint sniffers i no longer do that hehe.  alternatively i advertise in the local paper, i generally get a lot of calls but more often then not people dont bother showing up when they say they will etc. I put my details down for an agent my dad used to get his share people but I never heard anything.

    as for the spook thing I've had many weirdos, mainly males.  I've learnt like you to go with my gut also.  unfortuntly I'm too nice and deffinatly too nieve.  I'm only 23 an know noone in my situation so it was all trial and error really.  I have a couple in one of my rooms atm and they are awesome.  we get aong really well and they're extreemly helpfull.  they're even going to [aint the outside of my house in exchange for a couple weeks free rent.

    like i said, trial and error :)
    I'm learning slowly.
    Just makes it a lot harder when im the only person i know aside from my father who has property and our views are becomming very different the more i research about it all.  hence why I'm here, to learn more :)

    but yes sounds like you have the better idea about it all.

    god luck with it :)

    hayley

    Profile photo of lin.propertylin.property
    Member
    @lin.property
    Join Date: 2005
    Post Count: 2

    Hi,

    Just to share my experience. I bought my first place in 2004: $350k 2 BR Unit + Sun room next to a major university. The agents quoted me something like $330 and I told them to get stuffed. I sub divided the main BR into 2, and made the Sun room into a room also. Threw in some old second hand furniture and I had 4 furnished rooms rented out to students at a total of $525 pw.

    The hassle is, I have to manage the place myself, and it's not something for everyone. But most cf+ properties don't drop out of the sky, you'd need to put in efforts to add value anyway, either by extending, renovating, demolishing or whatever.

    Yun

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