Columbia Citizens

I have a partially-finished basement with a very nice 20 foot by 30 foot finished room with seven foot ceilings, a few small windows, a half bathroom w/o shower and a private entrance. If I rent it we'll be sharing kitchen and main bathroom and part of the upstairs common area. So, it's really a houseshare/rental. It's nice house, craftsman, with a yard, and I've done some work to improve it.

Any idea what I could rent that for? How would I go about thinking through pricing it?

I've never rented to someone before. Any advice, cautions, encouragement about having a renter/housemate? What's the best way to advertise it if I do?

Oh, and I might be willing to have another dog or cat in the house, if that makes a difference…

Thanks!

Hi just wanted you to know we rented a house in Spokane for 5 years, after moving back to Seattle area.

Do you own the home? Do you have insurance to cover any damage by renters (ie: fire, water damage, structural damage like to walls, plumbing fixtures for example or any other damage to the actual house or property, damage by their animals, etc.)

You will need a contract rental agreement, you can download them online or I would be happy to give you a couple — we sold our house, yeah! So I still have a packet of blank rental agreement papers. It was too far away to have a rental & never could find a reliable property manager.

Get references & check them out thoroughly, job & workplace ones too, even google the person maybe, be sure you don't allow a criminal type in your home, or someone with mental health issues, etc.

Sorry, don't mean to frighten you, just telling you to be cautious since you will be sharing your home with this person.

You must have a set of rules for the house & if they break those rules, have it written into the contract (get it notarized at your bank) they must immediately move out. I would say, maybe $400-600 a month or more, depending on your mortgage payment & utility costs, plus get 1st/last month rent & damage deposit — NEVER let them get behind in rent, we lost 4 months rent with one renter, it cost us a huge amount of money to also get rid of the junk they left behind, repaint the house & fix damages to house on top of losing the rent.

Rental price all depends on if you are you going to have them help w/utilities, share yardwork duties, etc. Must think of all these things before renting or sharing a house with someone. Little things can turn into huge issues, such as food, housecleaning, even taking trash out, having people stay over, invading private spaces, using personal items & so on, be sure to have written agreements on having people over to use common areas, parties, etc. Should all be in contract for renter to sign.

I would insist the person has a cell phone so they do not give your number out to others & you will not have the annoyance of always have to take messages for them.

Just put a for rent sign out in front of your place, advertise at this site (Wiki & other free places, put up on message boards in Columbia City area, if you have enough money to pay for ad, try the Beacon Hill & South District Journal, much cheaper than PI or Times, very expensive to run ads in the larger papers.

Animals CAN be destructive to your property, inside & out, so think about that, though we are animal lovers, the dog of our last renters never cleaned up the dog poo, their dog dug so many holes in our backyard we had to pay for fill dirt & reseed, cat urine indoors is very difficult to get rid of smell — we had to replace carpet & have wood floor beneath treated to get rid of odor — if in your part of house, can claw up your furniture, carpet, etc. Cat urine outdoors kills plants & dog & cat pee causes yellow areas on lawn.

Well, hope this was not too negative but helpful, hope you get the PERFECT RENTER!! BEST OF LUCK! By the way, are you a guy or gal & looking for a guy or gal housemate? Can't remember my Wikli membership # so contact me by "TO Sher, about renting basement"