<p>I keep looking at the empty room thinking the economy is so bad, I could be renting DD room out while she is in college. The market is $400 a month. Should I rent it out?</p>
<p>Where will your DD stay if/when she comes home for breaks? Thanksgiving, Christmas break, etc?</p>
<p>We have sort of joked about it. We have two available. I think the hardest part for us would be the loss of privacy. I think I could get between 800 and 1000 for each room.</p>
<p>It has been important to my daughter to have her room available, and pretty much unchanged, when she comes home, to have her “space” still there. I think somehow this signals that she’s still part of this family, and this is still home. Maybe that wouldn’t matter as much to some kids, but it has mattered to her. (But we do use her closet!)</p>
<p>I think I have mentioned that we keep our older daughter’s room as a shrine. We go in there when we miss her (I do).</p>
<p>If you rent it out and report it then you would have to pay tax on it. If your daughter is on financial aid, the aid may go down. It’s not worth it.</p>
<p>My kid’s rooms were kept intact for 4 or 5 years after HS, then how to use the space was up to me.
Older D was floored when she saw her newly designated guest room - “It’s so empty!” By 24 I think it’s time to take down the posters and homecoming mums and high school award certificates.</p>
<p>As far as renting for $, I find myself suddenly looking at my home improvement magazines in a different light. If this floor plan had to be broken up for 2 families, how would you do it? A new entry door here, a wall there… </p>
<p>Unless you really, really need the cash and the income wouldn’t impact fin aid, are you willing to have a stranger in your home? Think about the security issues, insurance, sharing common spaces…</p>
<p>DS is room hunting in Berlin, Ger. Nov-Dec 22. Anybody you know?</p>
<p>I’d be pretty upset if I came home to find some stranger living in what’s been “my” space for the past 18 years. </p>
<p>Once I move out for good and have a new “home”, my parents can do whatever they wish with my room. Until then, though, I’d like it to stay mine.</p>
<p>Loss of privacy would be big for me too. I’d have to REALLY need the $$. </p>
<p>We had her pack up her room and moved her little sister into it. We made the little sister’s room into a reading room–comfy recliner, no TV, shelves of books, a stereo, good lighting. </p>
<p>Giving some thought as to what to turn little sister’s room into when she leaves for college next year…</p>
<p>I am 50+ years old and I still have a room at my parent’s house as does my brother!! While there are no posters on the wall or 8 track tapes sitting around, it is still my room. </p>
<p>My parents had no need for a guest room as almost our entire family lives in the same city. When the two that don’t live here visit, they stay in my room which was redone when I was 16. My brother’s room was redone after he left, as it looked like a teenage boys room.</p>
<p>When my kids were younger and would spend the night at my parents, they loved sleeping in “mom’s” room. Every now and then I find something in a night table that my mother didn’t move and it takes me back in time, but most of our belongings have been removed.</p>
<p>I have a friend who did this, but her house is a split level with essentially a suit downstairs, so she and the renter had a great deal of privacy- I think they shared laundry, but she had put a basic kitchenette in the lower level</p>
<p>Having had a college graduate move home for a year of transition and having had two occasions where older parents stayed with us for 8-12 weeks, I think I am not yet desperate enough to give up my privacy, plus I live in the boonies, so there is no reason any one else would want to be here</p>
<p>We never had a stranger living in the house, and I don’t think I could stand it now. My son is now in graduate school on the other side of the country and will be a guest on the rare occasions when he comes here. He would probably not be at all offended if we asked him to sleep in the living room or if we got him a hotel room on those occasions. But still, renting out one of our bedrooms seems extreme. </p>
<p>When our daughter is out of the house full-time too (she’s now a college sophomore), I would like to save some money on housing, though, but I was thinking in terms of downsizing to a smaller place rather than renting out part of this one.</p>
<p>Also, I have the vague impression that renting out rooms may be against the zoning laws, or at the very least the homeowners’ agreement, where I live. The same might apply in your area, too.</p>
<p>Oh I forgot to preface the situation. Her father and I are divorced so the kid has two rooms of her own. We all talked this weekend and she decided to consolidate all her junk into one room and put the extra stuff like the extra bed in storage. The ex will be able to downsize to a onebedroom instead of two bedroom. That seems to make the most sense and she still has a place to come to on break and during summer. She also has a spare rollaway bed at another home with her BFF. </p>
<p>The house is so gosh darn quiet with out a teenager with ipod in her ears running around the place.</p>