I don't know why I didn't do it sooner, but one day many years ago, I decided to try renting rooms in my home. I was young and single, and had a nice mobile home on small piece of property. I found that it was easy to rent out the other two bedrooms. Suddenly, I had thousands of dollars extra each year.

Why Room Rentals?

In many towns where the rents are high, single people are forced to share apartments with others. They inevitably have problems with splitting the bills, what to do if one person is late with their share of the rent, who made which phone calls, etc. So when they see a room for in a nice home, with everything from local cals to cable TV included in the rent, they like the idea.

Room Rentals - The How To

Include everything. Don't set yourself up for arguments about who owes what for utilities, or who watches the cable TV more. Cancel long distance plans, get a phone card, and just have local service. If utilities run high, raise the rent. Just don't be tempted into any "share" arrangements for anything.

The value in this simple way is obvious. While others fought with landlords and roommate-friends, my renters stayed for years, with no household bills to pay, and no money issues for us to argue about. I had them pay weekly or bi-weekly, according to their paydays, so they wouldn't have to save up for monthly rent.

Regulations in some places prevent renting rooms, but they are rarely enforced, and are being legaly challenged more and more. It is difficult to justify a system that allows a family with ten kids to live in a house, while discriminating against a household of three or four people - just because they are unrelated.

Room Rental Profits

I no longer live in Traverse City, Michigan, but in a decent house there, you can get $100 per week for a room. With two rooms to rent out, that's $10,400 per year. Most of that is profit, since household bills don't go up much with two more people in the house. If you don't mind the company, that's a lot of extra cash.