I had a spate of vacancies over the past couple of weeks. My best room was vacant for nearly a month and I had two other folks move out over the past couple of weeks, so I thought I'd have 3 vacancies, but then all of the sudden I got calls and filled them. Demand in this area is high for rooms and people look for them specifically. The mix now is two retirees, two guys who work at Amazon, a young kid who works in a warehouse, a young single girl and two mothers and daughters. Everyone seems to be getting along except the two retirees. You would think that age chills folks out--not so, but I'll devote a separate post to those two. One of them is going to have to go.

I started charging extra for room sharing by bumping room rates 25% for more than one. If they don't have the full deposit, I also bump rates 25%. I'm also no longer allowing them to bring in furniture.

Your adventure with this is always interesting!

I've got an old house on a corner lot, 3 & 1.5, that is zoned R3. While the lot isn't actually large enough for a duplex or larger to go on it, the fact that it is zoned R3 means I CAN put a home up to 8 bedrooms and 4 stories on it, and rent by the room. Not ready to tear down the old one yet, but I'm seriously considering it in the near future. Just trying to figure out parking.

Yay you!

I've only had to put out three people. One person moved to be with their family down south. Another moved due to having a baby. One person moved in with their boyfriend who was also a former resident. Others just moved without warning. I suspect they didn't have the rent money and wanted to avoid eviction. The shortest tenure was a month. I currently have 3 folks who've been there over a year. I'm guessing the average stay is 6-8 months.

Strangely, the city has no requirements for parking. My place is in a densely populated area where parking is an issue as well. Only 3 of the tenants have cars. All of the others work locally and either walk or bus it to work.

There's a mixture of people who look for this type of housing from young to old. I had an older guy try to apply today who had 2400 of SSI who wanted specifically to be in a rooming house for older disabled people. He can't afford market rent. The same applies to the younger folks. One of the guys has a heavy child support obligation taking a chunk of his paycheck and can only afford a room. There's a bunch of people who need this sort of housing and I fill these way easier than I do apartments. Usually, these folks are housing insecure and have a sort of desperation, but it's not the same as those desperate folks seeking apartments. Most are grateful for housing while many of the same desperadoes looking for apartments are trying to get over IMO. Of course, what's keeps them honest is immediate eviction. However, I say and say again that many of these folks are "normal" people displaced by circumstances or simply victims of a declining economy or their choices.