Running a rooming house or boarding house: an owner's guide
Running a rooming house or boarding house: an owner's guide
A rooming house rents private rooms in one building, with shared kitchens or bathrooms. A boarding house usually adds meals. A single room occupancy (SRO) building is the larger version of the same idea, usually with one room per person.
Many cities regulate them closely. This guide covers what to check first and how to run the rooms once you open.
It is general information, not legal advice. These rules are mostly local, so check yours.
1. Ask the city before you buy
Most problems start here. Ask the planning or building department:
- Is a rooming house allowed at this address?
- How many unrelated people can live there before it counts as one?
- Does it need a license or a registration?
- What does the fire code need: alarms, exits, sprinklers?
Massachusetts, for example, calls them lodging houses. Your state or city may use another name, so ask for its rules by address. Get the answer in writing, because the seller's "it has always been a rooming house" will not protect you.
2. Decide if you serve meals
Meals can change your classification. They may bring in food safety rules, and in some states food plus personal help moves a home into care-home licensing. Georgia is one example: housing, food and a personal service for two or more unrelated adults calls for a personal care home license. If you only want to rent rooms, do not add services casually.
3. Write one agreement per room
One agreement per room keeps each person's rent, deposit and move-out apart. If one person leaves, the others are untouched. Include:
- the exact room and the shared areas
- the rent, the due date and any late fee
- the deposit and what it covers
- the house rules, including guests, quiet hours and kitchen use
- how notice works on both sides
Whether a roomer has full tenant rights depends on your state and sometimes on how long they have lived there. Ask before your first dispute, not during it.
4. Treat every room like its own rental
- A separate account for each person: charges, payments and balance.
- A photo of the room at move-in and move-out.
- A written record of every cash or check payment on the day it arrives.
- Reminders that stop as soon as someone pays.
- Stop charging on the move-out date, and keep what is still owed.
5. Keep the house itself in order
Keep alarm checks, extinguisher dates, repairs and rule changes in one file per house. Clean and fix the shared areas on a schedule, since those are where complaints begin.
6. Advertise the room
Describe the room, the rent and the rules. Do not say who you would like to live there. Fair housing law applies to most rentals, and there are limited exceptions you should not assume you qualify for.
Where Rentology fits
Rentology was built for houses rented by the room. A house counts as one property, not as one property per bedroom. The normal plan price applies ($149 a month covers up to 3 properties), plus $6 a month for each room with its own lease, so a house with four leased rooms adds $24. You add the house and its rooms in one step, and add people who already live there directly.
Rent is created monthly for each room, so it suits monthly agreements. Residents can pay by bank transfer, cash and checks are recorded by hand, and moving someone out stops rent after the move-out date. You can try it free for 14 days with up to 5 houses. See also renting rooms in a house.