Renting my spare room(s) out

puddings_2

I worked out today that since welcoming my first lodger 16 years ago, I've taken rent of over £80,000 from them!!
My whole mortgage is less than that. If only I'd not spent all their rent down the pub!

Anybody considering taking in a lodger - GO FOR IT!!!

tiff

In the 80's recession when interest rates went sky high and my DH's ex girlfriend left him with the house, he got 2 lodgers for his 2 bedroomed house and slept on the sofa in order to keep his head above water. The mortgage was almost the same amount as his income! He ate baked beans and jacket potatoes every day and survived lol

gravitas

Hi all quick update

I've put an advert on spareroom.com £11 for 14 days

I've contacted a few people on there who seem to be after who i have to offer, interestingly with the summer coming up a lot of people want short term 3 month lets which suits me fine because if I could get 3/4 months at a time with someone it gives me a bit of time to myself in between whilst finding someone else plus is we dont get on its not forever!

Seen a few adverts from tradesman as well offering £70-100 p/w for a single room for 2-3 weeks at a time which i thought was a lot but when you weight up against staying in a hotel or B&B for three weeks it makes cash common sense for them as well!

puddings_2

I dont live near a uni or at a place where executives might want to commute during the week so the type of person that I get living with me do tend to be long term stayers.
What I have found though , and it probably sounds like an awful generalisation, is that long term stayers do tend to be fairly low in intelligence! (I dont want to sound snobby or superior - that is sincerley NOT who i am) but for example i mentioned swine flu today to one of my guests - its been on all the news for about a week now but he didn't have a clue what i was talking about.

I've wondered why it is often people like that which become long term guests and can only suggest that it's the lack of responsibility needed? All they do is pay one "all inclusive" rent bill once a month and everything is sorted - no council tax bills to pay, decorating, property repairs, utility bills to remember or anything else to worry about. The simple life?

jenhug

what about foreign exhange students?

puddings_2

jenhug wrote: »

what about foreign exhange students?

we dont get many foreign exchange students round here, like I said before there's no uni or anything like that.
but generally speaking, i would guess that people lodging near to universities are not going to be as thick as the ones that we get here!

ncv2

Where do you find exchange students? I am thinking about short term rentals as well.

ANGSTDATA

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1651557

gravitas

Not had anyone bite as yet but im a bit of an impatient worrier normally!

Fire_Fox

Have you thought about moving into the box room yourself and renting out the two decent sized bedrooms? That would bring in more money, encourage the lodgers to use their rooms more (not under your feet in living area). I have done this and it's not that big a deal - you are hardly in the room anyway. The only real issue is if you have a partner who stays over and storage of your stuff, but that's easy to sort by good use of understairs cupboards, underbed boxes, containers on top of wardrobe, etc. After all, it's your house!