Dipping a toe into this Land Lord thing....any insights would be awesome!

[swick]

Hi Guys!

You may (or not) have noticed I don't stray into this category too often - times they are a changin'!

We have just purchased a home in Southern BC, in a great community with a college that does have some international students.

Our new house has a walk-out contained basement suite. I use the term loosely as it is bright and airy and spacious. It is basically a duplex but one on top of the other instead of side by side.  The plan is to rent the basement out, there are a few ways we could do this, wondering what your thoughts are:


1. Rent it to a single family - We could probably get between 1,000 -1,200 a month. We would have to cover all the utilities. as we only have one panel.

2. Rent out to students/singles at a per room price - 2 bedrooms.

3. Offer international housing/home stay situation  - quite a bit more work, but my background is education with a focus on teaching English as a Second Language - so could be very profitable. Although the trade off might not be worth it compared to having a stable long term tenant.

The ideal would be to have my BIL and his wife move in, which is a possibility but trying to come up with a good alternate plan. Anything specific I should be considering?

Thanks!

[sammybiker]

- Are you managing yourself?

- Are you managing locally?

- How hands on do want to be?

[CowboyAndIndian]

Trying to play devil's advocate here.

BIL moving in with wife: Do you want family that close? I can see issues with that arrangement.

Foreign Students: They cook foreign food. Do you think you could live with that. Get an Indian there and your house is going to smell of curry*

Student in general: The stay up late, could you handle loud conversations at 3am?

Pick your category very carefully. If I was in your position, I would pick a older single lady. Women are generally quieter/cleaner than men*

* as my name suggests, I am Indian and a guy.

[swick]

- Are you managing yourself?

- Are you managing locally?

- How hands on do want to be?

Good Questions!
We'll be living in the upper unit. I don't mind being hands-on. Hubby has a job lined up, I don't and would be quite happy with pursuing a couple of my side hustles and keeping in top of things. We don't *need* the rental income to make the numbers work - but it would be gravy for our FI goals.

Trying to play devil's advocate here.

BIL moving in with wife: Do you want family that close? I can see issues with that arrangement.

Foreign Students: They cook foreign food. Do you think you could live with that. Get an Indian there and your house is going to smell of curry*

Student in general: The stay up late, could you handle loud conversations at 3am?

Pick your category very carefully. If I was in your position, I would pick a older single lady. Women are generally quieter/cleaner than men*

* as my name suggests, I am Indian and a guy.

Thanks for playing Devil's advocate :)

BIL would be idea. Very laid back couple, similar interests, they have no desire to have kids. While I wouldn't extend the offer to most of our family, this would work out no problem!

Not to concerned with the foreign food smells as we cook a lot of different foods ourselves :) Although hubby did note that in university, most (and yes, it is a generalization) foreign students (male) had very low standards for keeping living spaces clean since most of them were never taught how to before leaving home. Something to consider for sure.

An older, single lady or professional couple would probably be the ideal

[CowboyAndIndian]

Although hubby did note that in university, most (and yes, it is a generalization) foreign students (male) had very low standards for keeping living spaces clean since most of them were never taught how to before leaving home. Something to consider for sure.

So true. I joke that most Indian guys go from their mothers house to their wifes house.
They don't know how to cook, clean and take care of themselves.

[brooklynguy]

I am in the same situation; I rent out the downstairs apartment in my two-family rowhouse.  Read up on landlording in general, because almost all of the advice will apply equally to this situation.  But here are a couple of considerations that are unique to this situation:

- like CowboyandIndian said, your tenant will also be your downstairs neighbor, so you will want to scrutinize prospective tenants wearing both your landlord hat and your upstairs neighbor hat (luckily, your interests in both of these capacities are largely aligned).  But when selecting tenants, make sure you do not discriminate against applicants in any way that is illegal--research applicable law in your location, because it is not always self-evident which criteria are illegal to use in the selection of tenants.

- because you and your tenant will be next-door neighbors, it may be harder to maintain an arms-length business relationship.  Be a friendly and respectful neighbor and a friendly and respectful landlord, but try not to let either relationship compromise the other.

- on your point about the utilities, you should find out how much it would cost to have them separately metered and run the numbers to see if it's worth doing.  In any event, if you will be covering the utilities and that is not normal for a rental in your area, you should factor that into the rent you charge.