Make Money With Weekly Room Rentals

Yes, you can make a lot of money with weekly room rentals in your home. In fact, it is what allowed me to pay off my first mortgage after only a few years. Of course, you have to think about two things before you get started. First, you have to decide if you want thousands of dollars of extra cash each year. Perhaps that's an easy one to answer.

weekly dry erase calendar

The next issue is whether or not you want to live with other people in your home. Most of the time they will be strangers, although you could try to rent out the rooms only to people you know (I mostly rented to coworkers from the casino where I was employed at the time). If you think you can tolerate the company, read on.

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Why weekly room rentals, rather than monthly? There are a couple good reasons to charge by the week rather than by the month. The first has to do with the people you will typically rent to and why they are renting a room rather than getting their own apartment. You see, most of the time people rent rooms because they do not manage money all that well.

It isn't just about saving money versus an apartment, although that's a motivator as well. It is often because the tenant cannot handle saving up from each check to have the rent money ready at the start of each month. If it was just the total rent that was the problem, after all, he or she could share rent with a friend or two. So by charging the way most people get paid - weekly or bi-weekly - you help solve this problem, and you make it more likely that you will be paid on time. This is also why you should include all utilities in the rent, by the way. Room renters don't like surprises. It is better to just raise the rent if you notice your electrical bill getting too high.

There is another reason why it is best to rent by the week. It has to do with the relationship between you and your tenants. Weekly rentals appear to have more in common with a hotel room than an apartment or house rental. Thus, regardless of whether or not they are treated like the one or the other according to local laws and regulations, it makes it easier to evict a renter who is a problem or who doesn't pay the rent. This is also why I never had my room renters sign any rental agreements. With weekly cash rent and no formal document, they never felt like they had a right to be in my home if I no longer wanted them there.

In many areas you can get up to 0 or more per week for a room if you include all utilities. If you have two rooms to rent - or can create them out of space in an attic or basement - you can have an extra ,000 per year coming in. Just keep it simple, find good tenants, and make them weekly room rentals for the reasons given.

Make Money With Weekly Room Rentals

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Why Weekly Room Rentals?

There is one good reason to rent out rooms in your home: the extra income you'll have. There are several good reasons to make them weekly room rentals, rather than charging by the month, as is more typical with apartment or house rentals. Let's look at why you should charge by the week.

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To start with, it is a matter of psychology. The weekly payment makes the renter feel that he or she is renting a room in the same way as a hotel room is rented. This is important for easier evictions in case they are necessary.

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This is largely true, by the way, even if the law in your area treats room rentals the same as apartment rentals. The law is the law, but when asked to leave a renter is more likely to comply if he or she feels that the room is a short-term arrangement and not a "home." In the many years that I rented out rooms in my home I never had a renter run off to look up the regulations and laws when I asked he or she to move out.

In addition, there may very well be a difference in how the law treats weekly room rentals versus rooms rented by the month. After all, the local hotel doesn't have to provide a month's notice to get someone out of a room just because he has been there a week. But whatever the law is, put the psychology on your side.

The best reason to rent by the week is because most people who rent rooms get paid that way. Now, if they happen to be paid every two weeks, you might want to consider collecting on that schedule. The point here is to make it as easy as possible for a tenant to pay on time. Many who rent rooms are not very good at saving up for a big monthly payment, so don't make them do so. Charge according to how they are paid.

That is how I always charged, and it was part of my larger strategy to make it as easy as possible for renters to pay. That strategy meant including all utilities in the rent as well. If the bills went up I raised the rent, but I never had a single argument about who owed what for this or that or who was using too much electricity or water.

Finally, there is another psychological edge you get when making them weekly room rentals. It is that it feels like less money to renters. Even after I explained to renters that per week was really 5 per month - not the 0 they assumed - they still felt like it was less. It was easier to handle on a weekly basis in any case. With this and my other "make it easy" strategies, I actually had some renters stay for years.

Why Weekly Room Rentals?

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