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721: $1k a Month with your First Co-Living Property

The Side Hustle Show

Thu Feb 05 2026

Summary

The Side Hustle Show Episode 721

$1k a Month with your First Co-Living Property

Host: Nick Loper
Guest: Sam Weger, Scale Your Co-Living Real Estate Podcast
Release Date: February 5, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores how co-living can be a highly profitable and impactful real estate side hustle. Guest Sam Weger shares his journey from simple house hacking to owning and passively managing over 200 co-living rooms while addressing the affordable housing crisis. Sam digs into the nuts and bolts of the business, legal hurdles, juicy horror stories, and actionable how-tos for getting started—even with low capital.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is Co-Living and Its Financial Potential?

Co-living involves buying a large house and renting out rooms individually, often converting living spaces into extra bedrooms.
Traditional advice: cash flow of $100–250/month per unit. Co-living commonly produces $1,000–2,000/month per house.
- Sam Weger: “We won’t even look at a co-living home unless it produces $1,000 a month in cash flow. I would say the average is closer to two grand.” (01:17)
- Some students report $5,000/month from a single, large house.

2. Finding and Converting the Right Property

Focus on square footage, not just bedroom count.
- Rule of thumb: 1,500 sq ft = 4 bedrooms; add a bedroom for every additional 250 sq ft.
- Convert dining rooms, basements, etc., into bedrooms.
- Sam: “The biggest thing you need to look for in a home is square footage because you’re looking for size...1500 equals 4. And then every 250 square feet that that house gets, that means I find an extra room…” (02:50)

3. Legal Hurdles & Workarounds

Zoning and occupancy rules often limit number of unrelated people under one roof.
Creative solution: structure tenants as a “club” membership rather than standard leases, modeled after similar tactics used by large co-living companies.
- Sam: “We create an agreement that is not a lease agreement. We form a club...the club has hundreds and hundreds of members. The private club rents the house and the members get to use the house.” (05:25)
Laws are evolving; e.g., Colorado now prevents cities from restricting unrelated adults cohabiting.

4. Best Locations and Market Factors

Evaluate “co-living friendly score” (local attitudes, enforcement risk) and affordability gap.
- Avoid anti-co-living cities (Nashville, Sarasota are strict).
- Focus on cities where studio apartments are out of reach for those earning $15–25/hr, but not so cheap that co-living holds no value (e.g., small towns with $400 apartments won’t work).
- Sam: “You’re looking for a city where a studio apartment plus utilities is out of reach for people who make between $15–$25 an hour after taxes.” (09:39)

5. Acquisition & Financing Strategies

Most start with a primary residence loan, as low as 3% down, then house-hack; after a year, repeat for next property.
- Alternative: buy with intention to move out after one year, then convert to full co-living.
- Creative tactic—“invoice authorization”—have the seller fund rehab at closing by negotiating a higher price, but have rehab costs paid out of proceeds.
- Sam: “We get the seller to pay for the rehab, and we’re successful in probably 95% of the cases in doing that, even on the larger rehabs.” (13:47)

6. Ideal Property Checklist (16:58–19:58)

No HOA: Avoids restrictive rules and legal headaches.
Neighborhood fit: Prefer B-/B-quality, working-class areas with relaxed parking, no “white picket fence” uniformity.
Large square footage: 2,000–2,500+ sq ft optimal.
No amenities/pools: Stick to essentials for affordability, easier maintenance.
Proximity to major employers: Within commuting distance of large workplaces (airports, warehouses).
Parking: Need ~2/3 as many spots as bedrooms. Bonus for walkable public transport.

7. Pricing, Tenant Types, and Room Setup

Charge each room at 70–80% of local studio rent.
Accept singles, recently opened up to a limited number of couples (prefer private bath and extra parking).
Common areas are furnished; bedrooms left empty for tenant personalization.
Staging and clean, attractive common areas critical for marketing.

8. Screening and Managing Tenants

Use in-person interviews, background and eviction checks, income verification (2–3x rent).
Label kitchen shelves/fridge space per room. Strict no-personal-items-in-commons policy.
Regular professional cleaning; personal left items boxed and trashed if not claimed.

9. Community & Challenges

Some homes develop strong community; others are more introverted/quiet.
Memorable story: Sam married two former tenants who met in his co-living home. (29:13)
Issues happen (“peanut butter theft,” personality conflicts, parking headaches, utilities, even bitcoin mining), solved with detailed house rules, cameras, and policies.
- Sam: “We give everybody one free transfer. If it’s a really big issue, we’ll just be like, cool, we’ll transfer (to) another house completely free.” (36:45)

10. Scalability & Management

As you grow, can hand off to co-living management companies (15–20% of rent roll); niche is now supported by specialist firms.
Important to have robust systems, especially above six bedrooms.
- Sam: “If you’re going to do a 10-bedroom home and you’re not going to live there, there’s some systems you need to have in place.” (40:12)
Guest’s company only manages for students currently, but notes growing market of co-living property managers.

11. The Mission: Making an Impact

Addresses the US affordable housing shortage (7.3 million units short).
Offers cheaper living options and positive communal/social effects; can help combat social isolation and address the affordable housing crisis.
- Sam: “The room will become the new apartment...If you become a co-living investor, you’re providing a housing option for people that is cheaper than the cheapest thing. So, therefore, you are an inventor of cheaper price points.” (24:12; 43:59)

12. Sam’s Final Advice

Get clear, commit to one path, and go “all-in”—then put blinders on to avoid shiny object syndrome.
- Sam: “I think at some point you need to lock yourself in a room for as long as it takes and just say, which one am I gonna go all in on?” (46:41)

Memorable Quotes & Moments

On cash flow (01:17):

"We won’t even look at a co-living home unless it produces $1,000 a month in cash flow. I would say the average is closer to two grand."
— Sam Weger
On property hacking formula (02:50):

“The biggest thing you need to look for in a home is square footage because you’re looking for size...1500 equals 4. And then every 250 square feet that that house gets, that means I find an extra room…”
— Sam Weger
On legal workarounds (05:25):

“We create an agreement that is not a lease agreement. We form a club...the club has hundreds and hundreds of members. The private club rents the house and the members get to use the house.”
— Sam Weger
Mission-driven perspective (43:59):

“If you become a co-living investor, you’re providing a housing option for people that is cheaper than the cheapest thing. So, therefore, you are an inventor of cheaper price points.”
— Sam Weger
On commitment and focus (46:41):

“At some point you need to lock yourself in a room… and just say, which one am I gonna go all in on?...choose and then blinders.”
— Sam Weger

Timestamps for Key Segments

01:17 — Co-living cash flow potential
02:50 — How to assess and convert properties for co-living
05:25 — Legal strategies to operate in restrictive zoning areas
09:39 — Market selection & target tenant demographic
13:47 — Seller-funded rehab strategies
16:58 — Property selection checklist
21:03 — Renting to couples, singles, and special populations
24:12 — Preparation, marketing, and staging homes
33:18 — Tenant horror stories & house rules
40:12 — Managing at scale, property management options
43:59 — Social mission & affordable housing impact
46:41 — Final advice: pick a lane and stay focused

Action Steps & Resources

Learn More & Free Training:
- Check out Sam’s website: scaleyourrealestate.com
- Free 5-day co-living challenge for hands-on guidance.
Listen/Connect:
- Scale Your Co-living Real Estate podcast.
- Other Side Hustle Show real estate playlists: land investing, Airbnb co-hosting, rental arbitrage, house hacking, etc.

This episode is an essential listen if you're seeking a real estate side hustle that combines solid cash flow, scalable potential, and genuine social impact. Sam’s practical tips, personal journey, and transparency around both the rewards and headaches of co-living make for a comprehensive blueprint for action.

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Transcript

Nick Loper (0:01)

My guest says this is the fastest and most impactful path to wealth in real estate and he's breaking down how it works, starting as a side hustle. The path in question is called co living. This is getting a big house and renting out the rooms individually. So what started for him as a simple house hack in 2011 has grown to a portfolio of over 200 rooms, passively managed and addressing affordable housing from the ground up. From scale your co living real estate podcast and scale your real estate.com Sam Weger welcome to the side Hustle Show.

Sam Weger (0:35)

Nick. I'm so excited to be on the side Hustle show. Thanks for having me, brother.

Nick Loper (0:38)

Yeah, I'm looking forward to kind of learning right alongside the listeners here because the traditional real estate investing advice that I've been given is single family home, you know, three bedroom, one or two bath, nice, you know, working class neighborhood, long term lease type of, type of strategy here and aim for a cash flow of 250 bucks a month. The co living model aims to like 4 or 5x that on a monthly basis. So you ultimately need fewer properties to meet your income goals. Yes. So what's, I mean what's realistic here in terms of income? Paint is the picture in terms either from your own example or from some of your community students.

Sam Weger (1:17)

When I grew up in real estate world, I remember Brandon Turner, some of these guys that were part of this bigger pockets community, which is a really big community in real estate, would say, hey, if you get $100 a month in cash flow per unit in, that's good, that's what you're looking for. And I remember thinking like, holy cow, for me to do that, I have to get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of units to actually create any income with co living. It really is not. And then I mean, just as a side note, I was listening to a podcast with Brandon Turner recently because he has $1 billion in real estate. I think it's over 10,000 units. And he said my cash flow from $1 billion in real estate is and I quote, a couple thousand dollars a month. And I was like, that's too little man. That's too little. Because we are here, obviously people listening to your show, we want to create some cash flow. So we won't even look at a co living home unless it prod thousand dollars a month in cash flow. I would say the average is closer to two grand and you'll see spikes. You're managing yourself. This could be even, even more because you're, you're taking out what you would normally pay to the manager and keeping that for yourself. So I had a student come to me recently and said, Sam, I have a 14 bedroom house that I self manage that I put a large down payment. I think she put like 30 or 35% down, so her loan was less. And she said after all my expenses, my net cash flow is $5,000 a month. I was like, one house? She's like, it's 14, it's 14. People share. This home is this huge house. And I was like, so that's a spike. That's like the craziest I've seen.

Sam Weger (10:39)

Yeah, for sure. The way I started this, I mean, and the way I recommend everybody start this, to be honest, is you can use, if you have a W2 and you have some income. I got my first home with a primary residence loan, which was 3% down. So it was 3% at that point. I mean, the home was $150,000. So I think what's 3% of all is. What is that five grand? You know, not a lot. So this is, this is house hacking, right? So I lived in the home and I rented out the other rooms. But then you're allowed in the United States to get a new primary residence loan every year. So then one year and one day I went back to my mortgage guy and said, I want another primary residence. I'm moving. He said, where are you moving? I said, I'm moving literally down the street. He was like, why? I said, because I'm gonna make this home a co living home now. And I'm into a new home. And he was like, well, I guess you can. It's completely legal. And that one was 5% down. Right? So. And I had a student come to me and there may be some people listening to this and being like, sam, that's a cool strategy for less money in the deal. But like, I have kids, I have a family. There's no way I could, I could move. And I had someone come to me. And he came up with the most brilliant idea. He said, I'm going to do a prime. I'm going to move into a home with my family. We're going to live in it for a year. No roommates, no housemates, but I'm going to buy it specifically for co living. When one year and one day Happens I'm moving out because that's where I don't want my family to have to live with anybody. And then I'm going to do all co living in that home and, and we're going to buy another primary residence loan. He said he only needed like three homes to reach his like low level of financial freedom number. His like basic level. He said, so I'm going to do that three times. He's like, and look Sam, my current plan to retirement is 30 years. He's like, if this gets me there in three, I'd be willing to move three times in three years to make this happen. And I was like, dude, that's really cool and creative.

Sam Weger (24:12)

You know, we only furnish the common areas. When I first started to come up with this concept, and obviously sharing homes has been around for as long as people have existed. So it's not like I invented the concept of living together, but I was definitely around, at least in the United States, when it was starting to gain traction and people were like, co what? Living together with who? And still that's the reaction we get. But I mean, it's definitely more acceptable now. This was. I bought my first home 14 years ago, so it's like first co living home. So when I was there, people, it wasn't really a thing. And somebody reached out to me from Berlin and he said, he kind of, he said, sam, in the United States, he goes, in Europe, we already all live this way. Yeah, they're very common. We have building codes that are specifically for coloring. He goes, but in America, he goes, I trust me, he goes, mark my words, the room will become the new apartment. And I just thought that was such a cool way of saying it, like, that's the way we go. So I want people to move all their own stuff into their own room. I don't want to have it furnished and it feel like a hotel or an Airbnb. So we only furnish the common areas and then the rooms. And obviously, yes, staging that common area really well. Fully furnished kitchen, getting good photos, and then just blasting it out on all the places that you can list. A room for rent is the next step if you want to fill this thing, right? There are so many places now that this is gaining popularity. There's so many places that you can list. You can list. Zillow just created a spot specifically for room for rent. Roomies. Roomster, Facebook Marketplace is a good place. Believe it or not, Craigslist is still a good place. And now there are other big tech companies that will allow you to, you know, place your home on their platform, similar to like what you could do with Airbnb, you know, so there's one called Pad Split, there's one called Common, there's one called Homeroom. You can, you can kind of place your and get leads that way. So yeah, then you get out and it's just Kind of like you rent anything else. You want to vet those people really well. You want to make sure they're a good fit for your community. You want to make sure they've got the income. Just think of you're renting anything out. You want to make sure that person that rented out is going to stay for a while, is going to pay the rent and it's going to not cause problems in that home.

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Sam Weger (40:46)

Guy picking up the knife? Let's see. I would not manage myself unless I just loved management. So I think I would try to find the best person to hand that off to. And again, I couldn't do that because there weren't people to do that for me. So I had to build my own company and had to do a lot of it myself. You know, only now in the last three, four years am I able to be completely hands off and live in Colombia and have it all taken care of. But that wasn't first eight years I was very involved. Even last couple of years I was involved in that company, helping rebuild it because we fired our property manager and had to get a whole new team. But like, there's weird things that happen in co living that just don't always happen. You know, someone's waking up in the middle of the night screaming like that's a big deal in co living. Someone's doing that in a single family home in the middle of nowhere, like nobody cares. Scream all you want on your single Family home that they rented from you. It's not hurting the home, but that's a big deal. If someone's. Okay, I'll tell you a funny one. This is a good ending. My team reaches out to me. This is recently. This is like, literally in the last three weeks, Sam. Okay? Like, someone's been shooting up heroin in the bathroom. There's blood everywhere. There's blood on the shower. There's blood on the thing. And, like, you know, like, when. When you send a cleaner in to deal with blood, you can't just send any cleaner in. You got to deal with, like, the guys, they got to come in in the hazmat suits and this. So it's like $8,000 to clean up blood, right? And they're like, we're kicking this guy out immediately. We're getting the hazmat guys in there. I was like, guys, how much is that guy to cost? I don't hear anything from my team. And I just gave him the thumbs up. I was like, do whatever you got to do. Get this freaking guy out of there. What the heck? He hit a vein. He was shooting up. Okay, I'm on the next meeting with them, like, a week later. I'm like, guys, whatever happened to the room? They were like, oh, we forgot to tell you. I'm like, yeah, what happened? They said it was just hair dye. He spilled some hair dye that was red. That looked like blood. I was like, you guys didn't think to, like, tell me that? I was thinking about this all week. They're like, yeah, the cleaner actually just, like, charged you 150 bucks, and it was good. So there's a good story, but, like, you gotta deal with that stuff, right? And you gotta deal with that.

Sam Weger (43:59)

600,000 people will be homeless in America tonight. I'm not saying all of that is due to affordability, but that's a freak ton of people in America. A lot of that is. Some of that is due to affordability for sure. There's mental health. There's some other issues, right? Obviously there's. We are 7.3 million affordable housing units short in America. We are not building. People are saddled up with more debt than ever before. They're spending a greater percentage of their income on housing, which means that their quality of life decreases. So I lived in co living when I made 100 grand in my business because I wanted to, like, go live a great life. I wanted to go buy gifts for my family and travel. I didn't want to spend 50% of my income or 30, 40% of my income on housing. So the mission behind this is you're providing, if you become a co living investor, you're providing a housing option for people that is cheaper than the cheapest thing. So therefore, you are an inventor of cheaper price points. You literally are an inventor. You're putting something on the market that did not previously exist. And you're hopefully doing it in a way where it's clean and it's quiet and it's safe. And so that is why cities love us. That is why not, not all cities understand us, but once they do understand us, they love us. Right. And so this is a really big key to solving affordable housing. And the last thing I'll just say is the Surgeon General of America can came out and said that social isolation, the effects of social isolation on our culture today are equal to the smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That's the health effects of what happens when someone feels isolated and socially. And so when you bring people together in an environment, yes, there can be conflict, but you also are bringing people back into community. But we're bringing back the shared economy, which I think has a lot of benefits. And so I love that, that honestly has kept me going when this has gotten hard is I want to do something good with my money. I want to, of course, I want to create a great return. I want to impact the world. I love to be a part of businesses that I feel like are making a difference to those underserved. And this is, this isn't luxury apartments, which they're building tens of thousands of luxury apartments in Charlotte because that's what makes money. I'm serving, I'm serving a population that really, truly needs it. And that to me is heartwarming. In addition to the money.

Nick Loper (47:47)

On the waiting list, it's scaleyourealestate.com scaleyourrealestate.com Very good. We'll link it up. Choose and then blinders. I think that's very important because I'm the person who at once have done pretty well. It's staying in my lane. Look, I'm going to produce this show. I'm going to do it for a decade. But it's really dangerous because every time I talk to people like yourself, it's like, oh, shoot, why don't I do that? Or how come I don't have a vending machine route? Or did you know you can make money doing this and it's dangerous from that perspective? But I like this call to pick the thing, go do the thing. There's a million different paths you can go and at a certain point you just got to decide anyways, if you're into real estate as a side hustle. Speaking of different paths, you know, it comes in a bunch of different flavors. We talked co Living today. We've covered a lot of other ones on the show, including land investing and Airbnb co hosting and creative financing and rental arbitrage house hacking. All that stuff. So I put together a real estate playlist of those side Hustle show episodes. You can grab that for free in the show notes for this1@sidehustlenation.com coliving or just follow the show notes link in the episode description. It'll get you right over there. But that's your real estate themed side Hustle show playlist. Really cool collection of strategies to go build some extra income. A big thanks to Sam for sharing his insight. Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. Side hustlenation.com deals is where to go to find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. That really does make a difference. But that is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. Fire off that text message. Hey, did you know about this? Have you heard about this? That's a big help as well. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the side Hustle Show. Hustle on the.