by Adam Dawson
We are getting a roommate! It’s just a temporary situation as one of our friends’ friends is moving to Austin next month. Emily’s been bugging me to rent out our extra bedroom for a while. Our house floorplan is ideal since the extra bedroom is directly inside the front door and has an attached bathroom. But I have been resisting. We had roommates once before and it was pretty tough. Also, I want our extra bedroom to be available for people who come visit us since we live so far away from many of our family and friends. But alas, this hasn’t exactly been the Field of Dreams…”if you have an extra bedroom, they will come,” hasn’t really been the case for us. It’s been empty since we moved in.
The roommate (Emily has met her, but I haven’t yet) will be moving in during the middle of December and rent until the end of January. And wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we committed to this, Emily has a friend coming to visit, and her parents also planned to stay with us over Christmas. So we are going to have a full house in December!
I’m glad we can help somebody moving to Austin get on their feet. I expect that they will pay some rent but not a lot. Hopefully we can apply whatever rent they pay to the Race to $15k fund. And it will be a good test to see if we could handle having a roommate on a permanent basis.
If this renter situation goes well, you could look into Air B&B. I’ve never tried it personally, but I always look at it a second time when big events come to my area.
The attached bathroom will help alot!!!!
As for Air BnB – it’s worth a look. I’ve used it for vacation and it worked out very well. I’m not sure how well it works for the landlords, so to speak. You might also want to check on the local laws regarding lodging taxes and zoning. NYC has been raising a fuss about the Air BnB rentals – the city has been arguing that they violate various codes and ordninances. All the same, it could be a great way to generate income and meet interesting people.
Getting a lodger or a room mate is a great way to make some extra cash. I’ve got two spare bedrooms and I rent them out, all the money goes towards paying off the mortgage as soon as possible. Thanks for sharing, really enjoy following this blog.
You two are focused now! Keep it up!
“I expect that they will pay some rent but not a lot. Hopefully we can apply whatever rent they pay to the Race to $15k fund.”
This is a bad plan. Not the getting a renter part. The part where you don’t have a price and an agreement for them to pay that amount before they move in.
Please, treat this like a business. Because it is!
We’ve thought about doing this for an event that happens here locally every year for one week. Most of our friends rent their entire house out because it can net $5,000+. Ultimately, I’m extremely uncomfortable with “sharing” my house with a stranger. Leaving it completely and renting the entire house out for the week is just out of the question as too much personal stuff would have to be locked away.
Sounds like an ok idea for the amount of time you’re talking about. I’d think long and hard about doing this long term. The personal dynamics of this and the impact it could potentially have on your marriage would be my biggest concerns.
Living with ten ants can be very difficult if they have different lifestyles compared to you and unfortunately that’s not something you can judge before living with them (which is when its too late to make the contract void). But at the same time, you do generate extra income which is always welcome. It just goes to show you can’t have a win-win situation always. Let’s hope your Race to $15k makes it all worth while.
It took me a few reads to realize ten ants was an autocorrect issue (or typo). I was interested that you were cautioning about boarders (and possibly AirBnB) users bringing bugs into the home.
The fear of bedbugs is so great in Toronto that two unrelated branches of my family have taken insane levels of precaution (one driving through the night to get home during a trip, rather than staying in a hotel because everyone knows hotel stays lead to bedbugs.) My sister can’t believe I’m not terrified of this issue. She’s afraid to stay at my house because I travel, therefore must have bedbugs. I spend 4+ months a year traveling and having picked up an obscure form of hepatitis, bedbugs are not the sort of bugs that scare me.
It looks like you are racing to meet your goal. With a renter, it’ll definitely be worth the hassle of sharing your home for a couple of years (or less) to meet your goal.
We wish we can do this but our home is only a two bedroom (930 sft) and it’ll be a very tight fit to have another person there. Otherwise, an extra $500 a month would definitely help!