Posted by dan on January 18, 2005 at 16:46:01:
I have wondered about that myself. I doubt you could do it very long without getting in trouble from the state for operating as such.
I have thought up another alternative that may work just as well; roommates.
I live in the vicinity of 2 colleges. College folks like to have their own place, but they don’t necessarily want to purchase anything. I thought if I could buy a house and ‘rent out rooms’ to these college students, I could run it like a hotel. I could even leave myself a little corner of the basement as ‘my room’, granting me access to the property any time I want, since it is ‘my residence’. If your are like me, you certainly don’t want to pay any more taxes than you have to. This plan could work well because you are not a landlord collecting rent, but rather an individual who is looking to ‘share expenses’. As far as I know, even though ‘a penny saved is a penny earned’ the government won’t tax you on what you ‘save’.
I have known a few people to do this, and from what I can tell here are the pitfalls;
- These people actually did live in these places, and they were extremely anal retentive. They would complain about every little thing that the roommates did. Eventually the roommates moved out, probably a relief to all parties concerned.
- The roommate finds a girlfriend/boyfriend and starts staying the night there, essentially moving out, and leaving all the stuff there for you do deal with, and no rent money.