The Landlord Lens - Is Coliving the Next Big Rental Hack?

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

Is coliving the next big rental hack, or just a roommate nightmare waiting to happen?In this episode, we break down the pros, cons, and real-world risks of coliving as a rental strategy. We talk about what makes coliving appealing for landlords and renters, where it can go wrong, and how to think through whether this model actually makes sense for your rental business.Whether you’re curious about maximizing rental income, managing shared spaces, or avoiding tenant drama, this conversation gives you a realistic look at the coliving trend.Guest: Jasmine Brown — @heyjasminebrown

Co-living is really just renting by the room with individual leases. People are moving to co-living because their short-term rentals aren't renting out the same. Hey everybody. TurboTenance Partnership and Events Manager Ava here. Here to host Landlord Lens. And I'm super excited. We have an awesome topic and guest here today. Talking with Jasmine Brown, a private lender and investor who has scaled her co-living portfolio to more than 50. rooms in just over a year. And we're talking about whether co-living is the future or just a trendy roommate nightmare with some better branding. So I'm super excited to have you here today. Welcome to Denver. Thank you. I'm curious, can you tell us a little bit about how you got started in

co-living and what drew you to the specific niche? Yeah, so I was investing in real estate already on the side of my corporate career and before becoming a lender. And I looked into co-living because I had one short-term rental that, I don't know, just wasn't performing the way that I wanted it to. And so I was like, okay, maybe I could rent out individual rooms. So that was my introduction to co-living. And then I met my business partner through a local meetup that I was hosting. And she was already doing co-living.

And so then we decided to come. together and and keep it going. I love it. Networking is everything. We talk about that a lot here on the podcast. So let's take a step back and can you give me just like flat out definition of co-living and why we should care about this specific niche as investors. Yes. So co-living is really just running by the room with individual leases. So you know in a traditional roommate situation you're coming in with your roommates. You already know who you're living with and, you know, you're moving in with your friends. You're all on one lease and you start and finish at the same time. But with co-living, it's really about I come in when I need it. You come in when you need it. And also, I'm not worrying

about covering individual expenses like utilities and Wi-Fi and all of those sorts of things. Most of the most people that do co-living do also provide fully furnished rooms, but there are some people that furnish the common areas and then, you know, have people bringing their own furnisher. Absolutely. Yeah. And great option these days for people who may not have a roommate that they have in mind as well, especially in big metro cities. But I'm curious, can you also give us the difference between co-living and house hacking? Yes. So co-living, it's really about the operational structure. And I say that to say, we call them operators and those are the people that, typically they are the ones that own the houses. They're managing the ins and outs between the residents and how, you know, the, how people live in the house together because they didn't all come together and they don't all know each other and making sure that there's synergy. With house hacking, you're really renting out your own primary house. You're running out rooms in your primary house.

You are the housemate. So there can be a hybrid where you are house hat co-living. That's a whole industry. But you can also do co-living standalone where you're not only working on your own house. And then, of course, a hot topic in co-living. I'm sure a lot of investors who aren't doing this specific strategy are curious, how do you make co-living feel professional instead of maybe chaotic when there's strangers living in a house together?

Yeah. there are definitely some chaotic moments. I don't think we can avoid. But it's really about being that mediator when things happen because the end of the day, it is a bunch of different personalities coming together. People have, you know, there's one person that's a super cleaner and then somebody that's a little messier and everyone having different definitions of what cleanliness is. So the way that we manage all of the residents in our houses is to really establish

the expectations up front at move-in to say, you know, this is how people live in our houses. You know, these are the expectations for how you keep your things and where you keep your things, things like that. Of course, easy things. Don't touch other people's food in the fridge. Totally. Well, what you think would be easy. But, you know, we've had those types of situations.

Somebody ate my food. So, yeah, it's really coming in and being the. that independent mediator when those little tips come up between housemates. I'm sure that makes the lease agreement super, super essential. And I'm assuming you put all of these specific house rules into the lease agreement. In addition to the lease agreement, what is different about managing room rentals and like the actual tools and like specific guidelines that go into that for the managing the tenants? So the primary tools that we use are lease management and rent collection, which the

best platforms are the ones that those are all inclusive and then communications for the residents to talk amongst each other without having an exchange personal information. Cool. So I want to talk about a little bit on the trendiness of co-living right now. Why do you think it's having a moment right now? Is this mostly because renters need more affordable places? Is it more because landlords are looking to increase cash flow? What do you think about the increasing popularity of co-living? Yes, I think it's both sides of that. So it's really landlords meeting the needs of the rental market and the renters. With renters, just an example in Atlanta, which is the market that I'm in right now, a renter is typically seeing rents for one bedroom apartment, 1,500 to upwards of 1900, depending on what type of place you're getting. And that doesn't include your utilities and all the other expenses that come with having your own place. But they can rent a furnished bedroom, all inclusive, a private bath, you know, $1,000 a month, a shared bathroom, $750 to $760 a month. So, you know, that's a significant

savings for them. And right now, I think everybody knows about the housing affordability issues. And it's just a really unfortunate, but very large problem. And so co-living's not the only solution, but it's something that people can do to save. on their housing expenses. So for the landlord side, buying a house is very expensive for them as well. And they're not making the same amount of cash flow that they used to make on long-term rentals. And then in short-term rentals, it's just become pretty saturated in a lot of markets. You know, a lot of people are moving to co-living because their short-term rentals aren't renting out the same. And what used to make sense for cash flow on those long-term rentals are now barely,

breaking even if you're buying a house right now. Absolutely. And then do you think that co-living is for every investor? I would say that any investor can do co-living because it's really just about do you want to manage the things that come with co-living? And so if you feel like you're really good with people, if you feel like you're really good with the hospitality that component that comes with being a co-living landlord, then it's for you. And then follow-up question of that, I think I know the answer, but do you think co-living can be passive? I would say that co-living is not a passive investment.

The only way that you're investing passively is if you are a silent partner. Absolutely. Awesome. Cool. I know there's a lot of people watching this that are probably like, that's for me or that's Definitely not for me after everything that we've talked about so far. But I will say that if you decide that you want to scale in this space, then as you build your team, you're spending less time, you know, on co-living, on the actual day-to-day of it. But traditionally, it's not a passive investment at all. Absolutely.

Yeah. And the more you build your team through, like, networking and meetups like you're talking about, as well as, like, building out your tech stack, I think can make it definitely a lot more manageable, especially if you're thinking about diversifying your income. Yeah. Yeah. What legal or compliance issues do investors need to check if they're wanting to get into this niche? So the biggest thing for legal and compliance is making sure that you're fitting within the terms of the local laws for people unrelated living together. So just looking at what that looks like for your market and, you know, going along those lines. But now I want to dive into a little bit on the specific roommate

disputes and I'm curious to you have a story about common issues that have happened within your co-living rentals and how you've handled them. Okay, so in one of our houses, there was a resident who parked sideways in front of the driveway. Oh, that's not good. And apparently the other resident was mad because someone parked in her spot that she normally parks in. Yeah. She had lived in house much longer than this newer person. So it was just a whole huge parking situation. And really, the way that we handled that is having a human conversation with people to say, first of all, why did you park like that? For the person that, you know, blocked everyone in intentionally. And then with the others, we just reminded everyone that there isn't a sign parking. And, you know,

this is just the space for everybody. Let's just make sure that we are being thoughtful of each other when we're doing parking. And when you're communicating with your tenants, are you typically in the group chats with them? We are not in the group chats. We are, but we have individual chats with them. But there are some hosts that they, you know, they are in the group chats. Do landlords need to screen differently for co-living tenants? Can you tell me a little bit about your specific process. So regarding credit, it's not a major factor for us because if you think about the renters, they're renting brooms and they probably are coming in scenarios that are not the most perfect financial situation. Totally. Yeah. And so that's where having those conversations, like if they have

an eviction, you know, on their record asking them, tell us about that situation and how did you handle it with the landlord, things like that. Those are the types of things that I would say we do differently from what a traditional long-term rental would do. Cool. So I'm curious, can you tell us more about what you do specifically? How do you fund and scale co-living deals? Tell us specifically about those acquisitions.

Yes. So we use primarily DSCR loans. And those loans are great because they look at just the performance of the property instead of your personal profile as a borrower. So it's essentially to say, does the rent pay this loan, then, you know, a couple other factors, but it's pretty much easier to get that loan. And it doesn't affect your personal debt to income ratio, which is important because when you're looking at conventional loans, you know, you have a limit of how many loans you can do, but

DSER loans, you can do those all day. So we use those. And then we also fund, we funded some rehabs out of pocket. So we've done the fix and flip loans. Another way that we fund our deals is with fix and flip loans to DSCR. And so we'll start with rehabbing the house to add some value to it in the beginning. And then we go into the long-term loan. And then lastly, we've done, well, those are really the main too.

Yeah. In regards to specific markets, because I know a lot of investors are wondering how they can make this work for them, what do you think are hot markets for co-living right now? Yeah. So, I mean, co-living is really blowing up everywhere around the country. It's funny because it's not really a new concept. You know, I lived in New York City for many, many years. And it's like co-living was in New York before I was even born because of the cost of living, right?

Totally. But it's now trickled into a lot of. other markets like Denver is super big and Atlanta and, you know, Nashville. It's really got into these other markets just because of the affordability that we talked about. So I think that really it's looking at starting with the market that you're in and seeing if it makes sense there. And then looking at some of those larger markets that have the rents that are maybe co-living is meeting about 50% of the rental price is a good is a good kind of factor to consider. I'm so excited to see your panel at the National Co-Living Conference this weekend.

Can you tell us a little bit about what you're talking about for a little sneak peek? Sure. So we are talking about, you know, everyone wants to talk about scaling and 50 rooms and 100 rooms and all those things. What we want to meet is the person that's starting from scratch because we were just, just there in this part of the industry a year ago. Yeah. And so we're talking about doing your first deal and how you build up to those future deals. And then Jasmine, if someone's wanting to get started with their first deal, who should they reach out to and how should they get more information?

Yeah. I'm happy to share information about helping them get started, getting the loan process going, and I can be reached at Hey, Jasmine Brown on Instagram. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate the chat on co-living. We haven't really covered it on our channel yet. And I'm curious, anyone in the comments, if you're looking into trying co-living, if you're already doing co-living, and how it's going for you. But I hope this was helpful. And catch you next time. TurboTenant is the all-in-one platform for landlords to manage their rental properties. From vacancy to tenancy, we have you covered with industry-leading people. tools and expert advice. Landlord better from anywhere for free at turbotenant.com.