A.D. Cantelmo Property Management
Our Business is Property Management in Orange County California
Making money with multiple roommates
As an investment property owner, making money is the key to
your success and as every Landlord understands, getting good Tenants is also
key to a successful rental business. The question becomes, what parameters do
you use to evaluate potential Tenants and how do you keep your property filled.
As a Property Manager, I deal with all kinds of Landlords
and all of them have different Ideas of how they want to market their property
and what parameters they want to use to fill their properties. Most of the
time, I can accommodate the will of the Landlord as long as their parameters
are fair and have no discriminatory intentions.
Dealing with Roommates
As anyone who deals with Tenants understand, dealing with
one family per home is difficult enough, but dealing with multiple individuals
can become a nightmare. Now you may say that having multiple roommates is no
different than managing a multi unit building, but not true. In a multi unit
building each family is separated by walls and locked doors, in a multi roommate
situation, much of the property is shared and as all of us who have grown up
with siblings know, sharing is not always easy.
So the question is how do you make money and keep your
sanity with a roommate situation. For me, If a Landlord wants me to manage a
roommate situation, I will charge more money than I normally do, just because
of the added headaches that are going to come, and the Landlord will have to
accept the house rules I put down for the Tenants to sign. What I have learned
from experience in these situations is that it can become more of a babysitting
situation, than a management issue.
Privacy
One of the big issues that I have had to deal with in roommate
situations is the privacy issues. The Bedrooms are going to be the only private
space the roommates have and those private spaces need to be respected by all.
If a roommate has problems with respecting the private space of other Roommates
then that roommate has to go.
Common area
In the common space of the property, Tenants have to share
and understand that all the roommates have to have access equally to those areas.
Roommates can make their own rules regarding when each can use these areas as
long as all the roommates agree. Common area situations are the most complained
about problems that come from Roommate/Tenants.
Visitors
Another big issue is visitors to the property. The visitors
to the property also have to abide by the privacy and the sharing rules, but if
a visitor is making one of the roommates uncomfortable, then as a Property
Manager, I will always take the side of the Paying Tenant and all the roommates
need to understand that. Each roommate has the right to enjoy the property and
that means that if someone who does not have a Tenant’s right to be on the property, is creating
an issue with that enjoyment, then that has to be dealt with. You can see the
problems that can arise from this; sometimes the Roommate is just being
vindictive and does not for some reason like the visitor. It can be jealousy or
just different personalities, but since the Property Manager does not live
there then they have to take the side of the Tenant.
Money to be made
With all the Problems that Roommate/Tenant situations can
bring, there is money to be made in this type of rental business. When you have
a property near a collage, you will have no problem renting the individual
rooms. Roommate/Tenant situations are very common Near Beaches and other
recreational areas. If you are willing to deal with turnover and all the other
problems we talked about, you can make more money renting the rooms then you
can renting the entire house to a single person or family.
I have talked about, in
other blogs how people who have children in college, buy a home near the
college for their children to live in and they rent out the other rooms to pay
for the mortgage. This is a good way to make sure your son, or daughter has a
nice place to live, but also pay for some of the bills.
As a Property Manager, Roommate/Tenant situations are not
ideal situations, but if you do take one on to manage, having rules are very
important to try and keep your sanity.
A.D. Cantelmo Property
Management Specializes in Property Management in Orange County
Ca.