Hi all, Does anyone have experience owning boarding/rooming houses in VIC and wouldn’t mind sharing their story? I’m interested in renting out the rooms one by one in a 4 / 5 bedroom house to allow me to hold decent assets with a much greater cash flow, but unfortunately it seems that will fall under the jurisdiction of a boarding house. Interested to hear about how complying with the legal side of things has been as a registered boarding house and what the tenant management process has been. Cheers!
In short: "unprofitable". Times *may* have changed but when we were doing it, we kept getting undercut by the illegals. I see the rooming house rules have even gone tighter now, so compliance would be even more difficult than when we were doing it. Better to by shares in Accor or something IMHO. The Y-man
The way I understand this is: Less than 3 tenants (not a rooming house and will not need to be registered) - if the owner lives in the house the tenants would ordinarily be considered under license and not subjected to the Residential Tenancies Act 1997. You may choose to sign agreements with each tenant. I would think it is a requirement for landlord insurance claims but have not read the PDS. shared households • information for housemates - Tenants Victoria
With respect, i'd disagree with The Y-man. I've just completed a conversion to a rooming house. I'm not trying to compete with illegals by offering the cheapest accommodation. All the rooms are practically self contained (they technically aren't allowed to be, but you can be creative) They are leased out on long term contracts on residential leases, aimed at people who don't want to live in a share house anymore, but can't afford their own apartment. I believe it is profitable with the right design, with financing being the biggest hurdle.
I used to work as a handyman for someone that owned about 8 boarding houses in Melb , you have to expect a fair amount of trouble from time to time inc police visits . He was constantly at the houses re trouble & problems , Common for kitchen fires too . The other thing that happened was the council made him put a commercial sprinkler system in one of the larger houses @ a cost of approx $ 30 K .
