5 Easy Steps to Converting Your Short-Term Rental:
How HomeRoom Transforms a Roommate Living Property in 60 Days or Less

Converting your short-term rental isn’t a decision to make lightly. You’ve already put in a lot of work to make your property rental-friendly for all those constantly revolving tenants, as well as all the time you spent marketing your space, and ensuring that you’re up to snuff on local laws and ordinances. But if your investment isn’t performing like you expected, it might be time to consider how a few small changes can create a much more stable source of income for you.

Converting a short-term rental into a roommate-living property can be a simple switch, and one which ultimately takes a lot of the responsibility off of you while maintaining that cashflow you’re after. The best part of all? Our roommate-living experts at HomeRoom can help make the switch even easier, with tips and guidance from start to finish.

HomeRoom’s 5 Easy Steps To Converting Your Home For Roommate-Living:

Step 1: Smart Locks: A Genius First Step

The first step in converting your short-term property to a roommate-living home is to install a smart lock, if you haven’t already. A smart lock on your front door is an important first step into simplifying your long-term tenant’s lives. Renters and contractors can easily access the home whenever they need, and the added security is a bonus, as it makes renters feel safe and taken care of. Plus, keyless entry means no more lost or misplaced house keys. We use Rently keyless entry locks for all of our properties.

Step 2: Sharing Is Caring for Household Items

Roommate-living is all about sharing a space, and a huge part of sharing a space is also sharing the items and appliances that we all use on a daily basis. Things like pots and pans, cooking utensils, and even televisions are essential household purchases that not only renters appreciate, but that also add to that unique sense of community that comes with roommate-living. There’s a good chance you’ve already stocked your short-term rental with kitchen and living room essentials, and some of those items can stay after converting to a long-term rental. Either way, providing these basic necessities reduces the need for storing everyone’s individual belongings, and can help foster relationships between housemates. Cooking a meal together or watching a movie in the shared spaces of a home are what roommate-living is all about, and those small purchases go a long way in ensuring your tenants are happy.

You can check out this list for all of HomeRoom’s required and recommended household items, which includes links to where to purchase each one!

Step 3: Bedrooms: The More the Merrier!

This step is optional, depending on the size of your property, but adding extra bedrooms can quickly multiply your ROI with surprisingly little investment on your end. The typical bedroom conversion process is actually a lot less complicated than you might think. Here are some tips to make your new bedrooms HomeRoom ready:

• Find a general contractor or handyman that has construction experience. Most of the time, you will only need to add one wall to create an additional bedroom, but of course, this depends on your property.

• If your new bedroom does not have a closet included, you can purchase and install a free-standing wardrobe. We recommend something over 40 inches wide. This is our favorite wardrobe!

Step 4: Deck Out Those Decks (and kitchens, and living rooms)

Providing shared furnishings such as sofas and dining room sets not only dramatically increase the appeal of your home, but also help create areas for fostering community connections, a must-have for roommate-living houses. It’s likely you already have functional furniture in your property that is suitable for a long-term rental home too. Even if you don’t, or you just want to upgrade your space, we have some tips and guidelines to ensure your property is comfortable as well as practical. 

Estate sales are a great place to find high-quality furniture for less. Buying used pieces can make your investment dollars stretch further, but always make sure the items you buy will last and can stand up to a lot of wear and tear. 

If decorating isn’t your forte, or you’d rather leave it to an expert, one furnishing tip we love is to hire a local designer that can obtain and install everything for a flat package rate. This is a great option for making sure common areas are cozy and functional and take the pressure off of you to find and arrange everything yourself.  

As part of the roommate-living model, HomeRoom requires shared areas in the property to be furnished. You can learn more about these specific requirements here.

Step 5: Utilities, Services, and Virtual Tours, Oh My!

Now that you’ve converted your property into the perfect roommate-living home, it’s time to document all your hard work, and show future HomeRoom members a clean, welcoming house that they’ll be excited to move into! Here are the final steps to making your property renter-ready:

• Create a virtual tour of your home, so prospective renters can explore the house from top to bottom and get a good sense of what it looks like without ever leaving their couch. We recommend the site Matterport to help you easily create a 3D virtual tour. Here’s an example of a virtual tour for one of our HomeRoom houses.

• Get professional photos taken to use for listings and websites

• Set up all the necessary utilities, the monthly cleaning service, and yard care maintenance.

Want to know if your property is suitable for conversion, or looking to purchase a home for roommate-living, but not sure where to start? Click here to learn more!