Hey - just trawling through archives looking at various topics and notice a few people mention student accommodation and boarding houses - just thought might be interesting to do a roll call? Wondered if anyone is interesting in swapping info or stories. Networking? Mentoring? Swapping stories on anything from room booking software to crazy lodger stories for fun? I've got 2 boarding houses - leased and looking to buy one soon, been doing it about 3 years so far in Sydney. I've only ever run into one or two others doing it - one far dodgier - illegal room letting and one who has turned it into a business with 100+ rooms.
Boarding Houses/Student Houses
- Thread starter Elliotte
- Start date
Perp does well and has a ton of experience. why not share your story upfront?
A downside for it in Brisbane City Council boundaries is the lack of future development potential. BCC are very anti the demolition of boarding houses. If it is a cashflow thing (and they are) then that may not bother you, just be aware that if your site gets rezoned to 5+ stories and would normally have had a massive increase in value, the current use of a boarding house negates that development potential and you won't receive the equity windfall that the block next door has.
Can someone assist me with a boarding house?
Say if I have a house on a 500m2 property with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathroom, and 1 kitchen.
I then build a 3 bedroom granny flat at the back. This granny flat has 1 bathroom and 1 kitchen.
I rented out the rooms (both the main house and granny flat)furnished to individual mostly to students.
With 7 bedrooms rented out separately and each have individual Tenancy Agreement that will be managed by me. The question is then am I classed as Boarding House ?
I want to avoid boarding housing if possible due to fire safety, council visits, banks don't like it, commercial utility bills, etc
I was told by a builder that the room themselves has to be self contained, ie each room rented out has to have its own bathroom and kitchen to be classified as 'one boarding house room', and that you need trigger 5 or more of these self contained rooms in order to designate as boarding house.
Can anyone confirm this?
Say if I have a house on a 500m2 property with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathroom, and 1 kitchen.
I then build a 3 bedroom granny flat at the back. This granny flat has 1 bathroom and 1 kitchen.
I rented out the rooms (both the main house and granny flat)furnished to individual mostly to students.
With 7 bedrooms rented out separately and each have individual Tenancy Agreement that will be managed by me. The question is then am I classed as Boarding House ?
I want to avoid boarding housing if possible due to fire safety, council visits, banks don't like it, commercial utility bills, etc
I was told by a builder that the room themselves has to be self contained, ie each room rented out has to have its own bathroom and kitchen to be classified as 'one boarding house room', and that you need trigger 5 or more of these self contained rooms in order to designate as boarding house.
Can anyone confirm this?
I know in Brisbane you can't rent out the granny flat seperately to the house under any circumstance. In brisbane a boarding house needs to have the land rezoned to multi unit dwelling as well. Plus you need other requirements, like an 800m2 plus block with at least 20m road frontage. Then you need the rooms to be a certain size, etc... Never heard about them needing their own bathrooms etc... At least in Brisbane that is not correct. They can share bathrooms and kitchen/dining/lounge areas and just rent a room.
1. Depends on how its presented - from a finance perspective its ok
2. You are going to build a 60sqm 3 bedroom granny flat? Thats a tad small no?
Because this for student accommodation and my aim is to maximize rental, 3 bedroom with own ensuite is ok, but there will be no lounge as such. Apparently there is also 4 bedroom plans granny flat available, in this case only 2 bathroom to share not own ensuite, and no lounge, just a small space to put breakfast table.
So if GF has 4 rooms + main house 4 rooms = total 8 rooms.
I am trying to find from legislation/legal/council perspective if this is ok.
So if GF has 4 rooms + main house 4 rooms = total 8 rooms.
I am trying to find from legislation/legal/council perspective if this is ok.
I don't think 3 or 4 bedder GF is going to work - people can't just live in a bedroom - there needs to be some form of common area? Which area of Sydney is this?
sorry I should mention the property is located in NSW, Penrith Council
Actually most of my people DO live in just a bedroom - I even have one boarding house that has no common areas at all apart from shared baths and kitchen. My other one which I carefully set up with huge dining areas, outdoor areas, verandahs, common lounges...empty 90% of the time. Sometimes they watch TV if they don't have one in their own room. And majority of boarding houses I've inspected for purchase don't have common areas. Saw one last week with 43 bedrooms. Just an outdoor smoking area.
I think you would be a boarding house and I wouldn't take the risk - council inspections and fire safety and all of those recommendations are there to stop people dying in badly thought out sharehouses/guesthouses/boarding houses. I don't begrudge the money spent on keeping everything legal and safe as it's morally the right thing to do I think.
Financially you'd hate to build it all, fly under the council radar for a long time and then get caught and declared a boarding house - then you're stuck renting just the house and GF you'd designed only for students and your yields would go down.
I think you would be a boarding house and I wouldn't take the risk - council inspections and fire safety and all of those recommendations are there to stop people dying in badly thought out sharehouses/guesthouses/boarding houses. I don't begrudge the money spent on keeping everything legal and safe as it's morally the right thing to do I think.
Financially you'd hate to build it all, fly under the council radar for a long time and then get caught and declared a boarding house - then you're stuck renting just the house and GF you'd designed only for students and your yields would go down.
I think my idea of renting out total 7-8 rooms individually in a Main house + GF, is out the door for the following reason:
Council advised even for the main house, you can not rent out rooms to 2 or more unrelated guest (bummer, did I hear someone say other council permit 4-5 unrelated guest before boarding house apply? well not for council)
Under the SEPP(AAHSEPP), the minimum size per room is 12m2. It is bigger than average GF rooms, so maximum room I really have in GF reduced to maximum 3 with no communal area. I believe boarding house is not limited to 60m2 like GF.
I guess I'll fall back to the traditional Main House + Granny Flat approach and rent to family in each respectively
Interesting though is S94 contribution levy is NIL for boarding houses.
Council advised even for the main house, you can not rent out rooms to 2 or more unrelated guest (bummer, did I hear someone say other council permit 4-5 unrelated guest before boarding house apply? well not for council)
Under the SEPP(AAHSEPP), the minimum size per room is 12m2. It is bigger than average GF rooms, so maximum room I really have in GF reduced to maximum 3 with no communal area. I believe boarding house is not limited to 60m2 like GF.
I guess I'll fall back to the traditional Main House + Granny Flat approach and rent to family in each respectively
Interesting though is S94 contribution levy is NIL for boarding houses.
In Victoria, anything above 4 or more unrelated guests is considered a "rooming house". Rooming house is the technical term for boarding house I believe. Not sure if there's a difference but thats what I've gathered.
To find out more check out this guide by consumer Victoria.
http://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/libr...uses--a-guide-for-residents-and-operators.pdf
in WA it's no more than six unrelated persons.
We just did a 4bedroom granny flat in Eastwood (Sydney). It was for Uni students @ Macquarie Uni.
See attached floor plan.
Also done a few 3 bedroom units with each bedroom having it's own ensuite. For uni students again. Makes good $$ sense. Landlords are getting $250+ per room!
See 3 br attached
See attached floor plan.
Also done a few 3 bedroom units with each bedroom having it's own ensuite. For uni students again. Makes good $$ sense. Landlords are getting $250+ per room!
See 3 br attached
Attachments
Are they under the affordable housing sepp or a full DA Brazen?
ANd where do the students put their desks?
They were affordable housing approvals.
They'res no limit on bedrooms or bathrooms, just kitchens (1).
Desks go to the end and side of the beds...of course!
Brazen.
