Renting part of your own house....good idea?

A lot of persons do it, especially if the house is big and they live alone or have a small family or just need some extra money maybe to even help pay the mortgage. Why not just rent part of the house? But this sometimes comes with complications. You get to see a lot of the things the tenants are doing, some of which may not be pleasing to you, probably even some visitors you do not like and other disturbances. So do you think it's a good idea?

 

If you are living alone then renting a part of your house to someone would be a good way to make some extra money. However if you have still have young kids, it wouldn't be advisable to rent your house to anyone because you never can tell if the person you are welcoming to your home is a pedophile.

 

I've done it in the past, and while the extra income helped, it wasn't something that I'd like to do again. For me it was the whole privacy issue that was the main problem. When you live in your own home you get used to being able to do as you want, when you have a person renting with you, you don't have the space you have become used to.

 

Someone had this outrageous idea that since my property is a bit large, I ought to consider sharing it with tenants, am a very picky human being, I'd rather let the tenants have the house and compound to themselves than sharing with them...to save myself headaches....that's just me, someone else will not mind the arrangement.

 

It's not a good long term solution... in fact I've never heard of it working well in the long run.
That being said, it can be a good quick solution if you are in need of cash or like you said, just want to make a few extra mortgage payments. I'd suggest short term rentals though... maybe students or people who just need a place to stay for their summer job. Or simply something like AirBNB for super short stays.

 

It is our policy to shoulder the expense of accommodation than sharing the accommodation. Privacy is very important to us so that is out of the question - renting a part of our house to help in the cost. When we were renting an apartment with 2 bedrooms, there were only the 2 of us - my husband and me. Friends would tell us to sublet the extra room but we disagreed for it will be a breach of our privacy. It is a good feeling that you can do whatever you want when inside your residence.

 

I would say that it really depends on where you are and what type of people you're looking to attract. Obviously if you know the person/people well it's a big benefit from a social perspective. From an economic perspective, some countries have favorable tax treatments for doing such things so it's a win-win on that front.

 

If you do it, make sure you are communicative and allow the people some freedom. I had a landlord who rented out all the rooms in the house, and lived there with his girlfriend. He would invite his entire family for weeks at a time without informing us, and his girlfriend's brother would just show up whenever he pleased. He wouldn't let us alter the temperature in the house even though all the walls he built (to install more rooms) destroyed the circulation. The neighbors wondered if he was running a hotel. He was a money obsessed dirt-bag like many Americans, and it showed. He didn't take care of landscaping, and we couldn't use the back yard because of the fire-ants.

You'll have a loooottt of people moving in and out if you aren't a good person.

 

Obsessed with money, huh, obviously your landlord is. I wonder how you endured that setup in that house. Our priority in life is contentment and stress-free living. With a lot of people staying in the house, that wouldn't give us peace because whatever their problems would also be our problems. No matter how good those people are, the involvement would be there since you have to socialize a bit like when they stories of what happened during the day, etc. It's not really a good setup for us to live with other people.

 

Yeah that's definitely one very bad way to do it. Of course in the end it's about money but it's better to offer good living conditions so the tenant stays... so much less hassle that way for everyone. And like I said, for the large majority this is a short term solution: just something to help pay the mortgage.