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You're listening to Carrie Lutz's Financial Survival
Network, where you get valuable information you

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just can't find anywhere else to thrive
in today's trying times. You need the

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Financial Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survival Network dot com

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and get your free newsletter in gift
Financial Survival Network now more than ever,

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And welcome you are watching listening to
the Financial Survival Network. I'm your host,

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Carrie Lutts. Well, there's a
lot of ways to make money in

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real estate that you could just buy
homes or condos and rent them annually monthly.

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You could do short term vacation rentals, but what about Airbnb without the

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baggage, without the luggage for a
longer term commitment, You're still going to

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make more cash flow, and effectively
you get the benefits of Airbnb without the

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burdens I'm talking about. My next
guest is Johnny Wolf and Johnny, your

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site is live homeroom dot com.
And if I have it right, basically

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you provide investors of means of renting
it by the room rather than by the

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home effectively. And I know you
came from Boston and my son lived in

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Boston for a while a lot of
people, especially when they're attending university,

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you're just looking for a room to
rent. So with that introduction, here

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tell us about about your evolution.
Here how you started this business. So

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I am start my career in the
Silicon Valley as a financial analyst and I

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but you know, early in my
career, I thought it'd be great to

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invest in real estate because it was, you know, buzzy everywhere thinks real

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estates the answer to generating wealth.
And my first property I did, okay,

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not amazing. It was in Midland, Texas, but I learned real

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estate and started to analyze it,
and I realized over the next five to

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seven years, after about a number
of other properties, that real estate was

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the investment strategy I wanted to use
to kind of build out my burstal net

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worth. So I moved to austin
twenty fifteen and invested in a number of

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single family homes and rented each out
by the room I'd lived in remained houses

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in San Francisco for a long time, and so I thought it just made

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sense, and I was able to
get quite a bit more rent in some

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cases fifty percent more, some thirty
percent more. It was a bit more

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work, but you know, at
the beginning of your real estate kind of

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investment, kind of push, you
know, every dollar matters. So I

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did that across Austin and then Kansas
City, and a few of my friends

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said, hey, how do I
invest like this? It seems like you're

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doing really well. And so then
Homer was born. So we started in

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twenty eighteen. We now have twelve
hundred rooms on the platform where people can

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help. We help people find homes
or on board their homes on our platform

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to rent them out by the room
for up to fifty between you know,

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alurgeen thirty five to fifty percent more
rent for the same exact house. Interesting

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and uh okay, so um,
Obviously there's more management. It's more management

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intensive when you have three people,
say renting a three bedroom home than just

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one person renting an entire house.
But what does that look like in terms

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of actually doing this, actually running
your properties? Yeah, yeah, more

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more labor intensive, as you know, as an understatement, I think you

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know the spectrum of single you got
your single family homes, it's pretty straightforward

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annual leases. Any syndicated side can
get you a renter and then the leases

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are standard and then you got on
the other side, you've got your short

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term rentals where it's people are moving
in and moving out. You got to

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furnish it. You've got star reviews
to worry about constantly. Um it's super

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heavy management. And there's companies like
for Costa, we charge like forty you

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know to run those for you because
it is really really hard and I think

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we're kind of in the middle,
right. We we get you more rent

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but the average people sign on for
a year. There is some you know,

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roommate dynamics that we manage I think, as you know, really well.

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But it so it costs cost a
bit more. But yeah, we

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we vet people. We you know, we have pretty aggressive leasing and marketing

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team. For tenants, we have
a really nice onboarding team as well as

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a roommate and house management team.
We provide like main service, yard care.

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You know, there's some things with
shared housing that if you don't you

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don't do essentially then it may or
may not get done. For example,

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the lawn getting mode. And we
found that when the lawn doesn't get mode,

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you know, the city comes knocking, which is not not awesome.

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Um, So we just we just
take care of that stuff, right,

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So it makes the roommate experience better, they stay longer, and then the

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owner makes more on their investment.
Right. Okay, so so what's the

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average tendencies a tendency length, how
long did they stay for? Now?

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The average length of stay is sixteen
months. It kind of varies based on

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when they sign, but most people
are signing for a twelve month lease.

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It's a bit cheaper. You can
do shorter, but it will charge more.

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And so yeah, most people are
usually doing a twelve month lease with

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an extension, all right, And
yeah, so is this mostly students student

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housing or road does it crossover?
Yeah, it's mostly not student housing.

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Actually, we really house students most. The average age of people that live

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with home room is twenty nine,
so it's mostly a lot of people are

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looking for more flexible to live,
a more social way to live, and

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a way to live that's cheaper.
You know, for a tenant to live

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in a home room, it's thirty
to fifty percent cheaper than a studio apartment

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in the same neighborhood. And so, you know, affordable housing is you

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know challenge today. So homeroom is
offering that in a way that's pretty streamlined

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pretty professional, and you know it's
hard to compete with especially on a price

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basis. Okay, And so you
were saying that the people eighteen to twenty

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five, is that you're key demographic. Eighteen to thirty five really is the

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key demographic, but it really exkews
towards the mid to late twenties. So

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in that generation and that demo is
that is this what they expect They're going

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to be sharing a house because it's
so expensive, they can't afford to buy

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in on their own. Maybe they
don't want to live on their own.

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How does it work? Yeah,
you know, the percentage of people living

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with roommates is actually more than doubled
on a percentage basis over the last few

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decades. Now twenty six percent of
young adults are living with roommates. So

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I don't know if if they necessarily
expect it, but it is an option

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that like most people in that age
group have be no people that are living

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with roommates today. Um, you
know, it's hard to buy a house,

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it's hard to save to buy a
house. People have a lot of

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student debt so and also people are
waiting a lot longer to get married.

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So there's just this big window of
time where affordability is important and you don't

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have two incomes. Right, Okay, so this kind of like transitional housing

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if I have that right, correct, I guess. I mean I think

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all of life is a transition,
right, So I think, you know,

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I think life stages come and go
in all different directions, and so

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this is sort of some people are
transitioning out of marriages in the home room,

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some people are transitioning in you know, out of college. You know,

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it's it's all over the game,
it's all over. We don't really

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say this is for pre marriage,
but we do find that there's a massive

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demand in that group. Um and
uh yeah, So something like that I

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think could be said interesting. Interesting, And it's like it's it's really a

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growing market. Huh yeah, it's
been. It's been grown for the last

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four decades, that's for sure.
So I do it Does it turn around

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at some point? Um, if
housing becomes a more affordable Um, it's

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hard to say. What's the biggest
driving factor is I think how I think

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it's a mix of housing, affordability, loneliness, and delayed marriages. I

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think all those together kind of just
you know, this the stars. You

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know, standard apartment is fine,
but it is very isolating, you know,

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and it's very expensive and you have
to you know, and it's very

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constrictive in terms of what you can
do with home, or you can kind

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of in our app you hit a
button, you can transfer to a different

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location, transfer between cities. So
you know, housing is not very it

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doesn't feel very modern, even in
like nice newer apartment building. So there's

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also a portion of this that is
the experience of living doesn't have to feel

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so nineteen eighties in my and so
that's that's something that we're also really focused

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on and why would people really enjoy
what we offer? Hey, all right,

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so we want to find out more. If we own property, we

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want to engage the service. How
do you find How do you find it?

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Um Uh, We're at live homeroom
dot com. You can kind of

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you know, we have few options. If you're a tenant, you can

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hit us up. We have some
virtual tours at homes. If you're an

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investor, you can schedule a time
with our investments team and they'll kind of

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talk you through how it all works. And if you ever have questions about

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roommate living, you can email me
at Johnny at livehomeroom dot com. I

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like to chat about it. It's
kind of my it's a big hobby of

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mine. And also so yeah,
that's how you get a hold of us.

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Okay, Well, the link will
be in the show notes live homeroom

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dot com. And if you have
any questions for Johnny and myself, shoot

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us an email k l at Kerry
Lutz dot com. We'll get you an

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answer quick. It sounds like a
very valuable service. We didn't even talk

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about the roommate screening and judgment searches
and evictions and criminal record it searches all

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part of the platform and John and
good luck with the service and appreciate you

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coming on. Karrie, thanks so
much for having me. Had a great

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time and really nice, nice chatting
with you, and and to our audience,

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thanks for listening to Carrie Lets's Financial
Survival Network, your solution to today's

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trying times. For the latest,
go to Financial Survival Network dot com.

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Financial Survival Network now more than ever,