Why pay your full mortgage payment when someone else can do it?
I am not talking about renters. Renters present huge hassles, as it's always a hit or miss situation. If you pick the wrong tenants, you can have a huge mess on your hands.
For example, my parents purchased a house years ago as an investment property. They rented the upstairs for $1050 and the downstairs suite for $800. It's harder to rent the entire house out to one person, and it's often more risky too. So, they thought this would have been a better idea. So they put ads in the newspaper and patiently waited for people to call. They were pretty nervous, because they needed tenants to pay for the first mortgage payment. Otherwise, they would have been paying for both houses.
The tenants upstairs were great, but they had serious problems with the tenants downstairs. Not only did they live like slobs, but they created problems with the neighbours. It was so bad that finally the police was involved. After my parents got rid of these tenants, my father and I had to clean up their mess. The place was a disaster; they had several cats, but never cleaned up after them, and the whole place smelled of urine. On top of that, there were thousands and thousands of fleas hopping around after the cats left. I could see little black dots all over my legs.
After a few years, my parents became really tired of renting out to tenants the conventional way, so they looked into another way of paying their mortgage.
The answer was homestays! This works especially well when you are living in the house that is open to homestay students. Generally, as a homestay host, you are required to provide the student(s) with a room, meals. Some schools may require you to drop off/pick up students under a certain age.
Homestay students were great! They are usually from Asia, studying ESL at a college or ESL school. Depending on the program they are enrolled in, they can be here for a few months or a year or longer. In most situations, they have already paid the school for their homestay costs, so the payment to you is guaranteed. The best part about homestays is that because you provide room and board, the pay is usually anywhere from $600-$800 per student. If you have several rooms in your house, and have maybe three students, you will be making $1800-$2400 per month.
They students are hassel free, and it's a great opportunity to learn about another culture. In my parents' case, the students were barely at home. They wanted to be out all the time, some even went on long trips. This was okay for my parents because the students paid the rent regardless.
Through accommodating homestay students and renting a couple of rooms to Japanese students, my parents never had to pay a cent into their mortgage. This is a great plan if your house is located close to a school. Many schools will advertise in the newspaper when they need host parents. They will want to visit your home to make sure that it's a safe environment. After that, you will be waitlisted until when a new group of students arrive!
