My husband and his partner are seriously considering purchasing a rooming house in Nova Scotia (where the partner lives). We have owned and managed several rental units, but have never had anything to do with a rooming house before.
The building consists of one large commercial space on the bottom level (currently a restaurant) and nine rooms above. The numbers look really good - $5500 per month in rents, the mortgage and costs would be about $3000 a month, and the restaurant consists of $2000 in rent per month, so even if it didn't pay rent for some reason (which I consider to be the biggest risk factor here) we would still come out on top.
The previous owner of the building was also the restaurant owner. He is quite old now and is retiring. He sold the restaurant several months ago (after it being there for 15 years) and now wants to sell the building and move somewhere warmer.
Does anyone have any experience with purchasing or managing rooming houses? What are the main risk factors I should look at before we consider buying?
The building consists of one large commercial space on the bottom level (currently a restaurant) and nine rooms above. The numbers look really good - $5500 per month in rents, the mortgage and costs would be about $3000 a month, and the restaurant consists of $2000 in rent per month, so even if it didn't pay rent for some reason (which I consider to be the biggest risk factor here) we would still come out on top.
The previous owner of the building was also the restaurant owner. He is quite old now and is retiring. He sold the restaurant several months ago (after it being there for 15 years) and now wants to sell the building and move somewhere warmer.
Does anyone have any experience with purchasing or managing rooming houses? What are the main risk factors I should look at before we consider buying?