Does Your Condo Association Allow Room (not entire condo unit) Rentals?

Hi,

I've posted on here before regarding co-owners renting a room in my association. The association is comprised of 181 units. Our current bylaws only allow the leasing of the entire condo unit. The board is in the process of updating our bylaws to include the renting of rooms in addition to an entire condo unit. The rental cap is proposed at 18% of the units. Ironically, the board president is currently renting out a room (against our current bylaws) and has also included language in the proposed bylaws to grandfather herself and anyone else currently renting to be part of the 18% proposed units.

We have a co-owner meeting in May that was originally going to be introducing the proposed bylaws and giving co-owners the chance to ask questions with the attorney. We received communication last week that the May meeting will now be to VOTE on the proposed bylaws. They plan to mail the proposed bylaws to all co-owners in a week or two.

My question is: How many of you live in an association that rents rooms? What are the pros and cons?

I'm against it due to increased parking issues, water usage, etc. I'm also guessing that our association insurance will increase since it will need to include coverage for tenants, not just co-owners.

Your input is greatly appreciated.

No - our rental restriction says entire unit only for a minimum of 6 months, copy of lease provided to association.

In addition to water usage and parking, I agree with Melissa about the "frat house" atmosphere and eventual damage to property values. Lenders are also cautious about approving mortgages in communities with too many rentals, which means cash buyers only. This also tends to drive down property values. Safety is also a potential issue.

Not sure what you mean about "insuring the tenants". You're already insuring the community against damage, injuries, etc. for residents and their guests and invitees. But higher numbers can lead to more of these things and make your community riskier to insure. Insurers are jacking up rates everywhere and even dropping clients, and it's not smart to do things that increase the likelihood of it happening to your community. (Just heard yesterday that the community down the street from mine was dropped by their former insurer, and they're scrambling. Nice community, well-maintained, around 25 years old, attractive to buyers, in a safe area. It makes me nervous to hear such things.)

I would not live in a community that allowed room rentals unless my only other options were my car or the street.

If you were lobbying a total COA newbie, then I think the issue on which you should pound most is parking. Lack of parking is a leading infrastructure complaint here at HOATalk. Not having a parking space close to one's home gets on people's nerves quickly, especially when the HOAs parking rules seem lacking.

Is it difficult to find a parking spot right now? Consider identifying the number of spaces available now; compare to the number of units and the possible occupancy of each units and the vehicles per unit that are possible. Does the math make the case for you all by itself?

There is a condo in one of our sub-associations where the owners let their daughter and her friends lease the unit. This is a condo with a garage and driveway and there are two many cars for the number of spaces available, so one person was parking on the street (not allowed per our rules). No one thought about that before they leased out the rooms.

We do make anyone (if we know about it) who is renting either a room or a whole unit fill out a tenant evaluation and they have to go through a background check and a credit check (both allowed by the state). It does discourage some people from renting out rooms.

Just because they are renting a room doesn't mean they don't have the same responsibilities as a regular renter. Make sure your documents have penalties for the owners for the damage their renters cause. Require a written lease from each room renter.

If you have parking passes, you may want to think about limiting the number of parking passes per unit - that can help stop owners from renting to too many people.

Kerry when I reference "Frat houses" it is an example of homes that rent out multiple rooms to individuals. It is NOT a "Frat house" per se but the general set up as one. In the old days it was common to have "boarding houses". Matter of fact I give a historical tour of a home that used to be one for mill workers. You can still see remnants of that set up.

There are numerous "college towns" that the practice of renting a room is quite common. It is cheaper and more private than a dorm. However, that type of use of a home generally doesn't have the same appreciation in a HOA. Renting rooms to individuals that are not family members or caretakers smells of a "business" in a HOA. As we know businesses that cause traffic or noise is usually against the rules.

My neighbor next door has a room mate. The HOA most likely doesn't know it unless they decide to blame the roommate for the mess of their home. They also have parking issues with too many cars in the driveway. Technically they should have room for 6 cars if they cleaned out their garage. Instead they cramp in 4 cars in the driveway inches from each other. It really is kind of an eyesore. Unfortunately they are NOT the only ones in my neighborhood who do this... We have no parking on the streets so driveways look like "party zones".

I also spent much of my career at a state university and lived in town part of that time.

In addition to actual "frat houses", we had large old houses (1800s and early 1900s vintage) that had been converted to rentals. There were zoning permits for each of these homes limiting the number who could legally rent there, but you always had the couch-surfers who crashed with others and weren't legally on the lease agreement.

You could spot these old houses by looking for: signage on the front of the building with the house's "clever" name, a parking area beside the house jammed full of vehicles, weird stuff hanging in the windows, and a lawn full of beer cans and fast food wrappers. Periodically the yards would be cleaned up, but on weekends you'd see all of the debris plus occasional puddles of vomit. Never really noticed used syringes since our students were more into alcohol and tobacco and pot (oops, add cigarette butts to the yard litter), but I didn't look for them. All this to the ever-present soundtrack of too loud music, except in winter when Mother Nature was trying to kill all of us.

This is why I commented that I would never again live in an area with this sort of atmosphere unless my only other options were my car or the street. This sort of thing is entertaining when you're in your teens or 20s, have no strong ties to the community and mostly no serious adult responsibilities. But for others who care about things like property values and finding a parking spot and not being kept awake all night by loud parties, it's pretty unappealing.

(You can see a lot of these same things where a house or condo is a short-term rental and ends up being the party house. The people who stay there are here and gone, and their misdeeds probably won't follow them when they leave. It's why so many communities try to restrict these things. Our rental restriction specifically says "no hotel-style or corporate housing".)

Our requirement is in either the deed requires all adult occupants to appear on the single lease for the unit and all leases to run at least a year.

Home sharing is an ancient practice.

I checked on this after I posted - turns out I had it wrong about condos vs student housing. It turns out it's been legal to build windowless bedrooms for student housing here in Austin ever since ~2002. Which of course means that builders have built a lot of windowless bedrooms (and also charged premium for building bedrooms with windows) - the story is that some architecture prof had an assignment every semester asking students to visualize the details of their bedroom, like the doorknob, window ... and a student said "I don't have a window" and the prof blew his stack [stuff] and so it is now illegal to build windowless bedroom housing in Austin now. Already-existing windowless housing get grandfathered. Some of my details may be a bit off, but that's what I got from the story I read.

Bill

Rather difficult to prove a room is being rented unless the renter fesses up.

Hi Jennifer,

I haven't encountered room rental issues before, but I suspect this could become more common as cost of living continues to rise. It does seem unfair that the president is trying to protect her interests, especially if only a handful of others are currently renting out rooms.

That being said, I'm not confident that many owners would want to share their home with someone else. I would not be surprised if this bylaw doesn't pass.

I agree.

My municipality has banned AirBnB etc. That will include room rentals. My specific condo docs specify only whole unit rentals. However there is of course the year long leases for entire units with roommates situations in our town due to expensive rents. If you need to see a change then see if there other like minded folks and get organized.