Cubbi for rooming or share housing

Can I use Cubbi for a rooming house?

Yes but it's worth pointing out, upfront that Cubbi has not been built specifically for rooming house tenancies however a lot of people use Cubbi for share housing very successfully.

The most important thing you need to know is, all lease agreements on Cubbi are Residential Tenancy Agreements based on state legislation therefore we recommend you create your own rooming agreement and sign that outside of Cubbi so you are legally covered.

How to set up a rooming house on Cubbi

There are multiple ways you can set up your rooms on Cubbi but the best way is to set up each 'room' as a separate 'property' (just like you would set up a different Unit within a complex or apartment building as a different 'property'). This keeps each room separate from one another, meaning each one has its own payment terms.

Example: If you had a property '2 Palm Avenue, Richmond' with 5 bedrooms that you want to rent out separtely, you would set up each room as a different property, like so:

  • Room 1/2 Palm Avenue, Richmond
  • Room 2/2 Palm Avenue, Richmond
  • Room 3/2 Palm Avenue, Richmond
  • Room 4/2 Palm Avenue, Richmond
  • Room 5/2 Palm Avenue, Richmond

Unit Number: Room 1

Street Number: 2

Street Name: Palm

Street Type: Avenue

You get the point :)

Within each property (in your case room) you'll soon have multiple tenancies as people move in and out of the room. Example:

Within the property 'Room 1/2 Palm Avenue, Richmond' you should invite your tenant (the person living in the room). This will create a new 'tenancy' inside the property 'Room 1/2 Palm Avenue, Richmond'. When they move out, you don't create a new property, you just create a new tenancy (by inviting the new tenant into Cubbi).

Finding new tenants

You can advertise the room on any other platform outside Cubbi like  Flatmates and gumtree. Then depending on how you like to screen people we recommend advertising the property/room (e.g 4/2 Palm Avenue, Richmond) on Cubbi (free) as well and directing all tenants to apply through Cubbi. An easy to way to direct them to apply is to tell them to go here or use the check in app. (you can see these options on the listing tab in your Cubbi dashboard)

When tenants apply you can just approve them and follow the prompts to collect the rent, sign the lease etc etc. However if you want to do all the onboarding of the tenant outside of Cubbi (eg collect the first rent payment and sign the lease outside Cubbi) we recommend that you 'add existing tenants' into Cubbi so Cubbi does not try and deduct the first rent payment and sign the lease. 

Advertising on realestate.com.au

If you want to advertise the property on realestate.com.au in the normal  'Rent' section you can do this within your Cubbi dashboard (this is not their 'share' section). 

Add a master property into Cubbi (e.g.  2 Palm Avenue, Richmond). You should only use this property for the purposes of advertising on 3rd party websites (realestate.com.au) so instead of advertising each bedroom separately you just advertise one property - this will save you money if multiple rooms are available at the same time. It is however important to make clear, realestate.com.au have a policy that you can only advertise one lease per listing on their website so essentially you can't have a template type listing (they refer to them as 'Generic Listings' - see references below) where you say 5 rooms available, Bedroom 1 $350, Bedroom 2 $400...' within the one ad, so instead you should advertise what is actually available and update the ad based on what room is available at the time. E.g the listing would have 1 bedroom rather than being a 5 bedroom house (because that is what is available for rent as far as a tenant is concerned). You also cannot leave the property listed for rent if nothing (no rooms) is actually available so you need to  remove it when it's not available.  

When tenants apply for a room you can contact support (hello@cubbi.com.au) and we can transfer the prospective tenants application to the rightful property (room) so you can accept their application and go through the move in process . (lease, bond, condition report). Alternatively you can just invite the tenant into Cubbi. Just make sure you don't collect any cash payments from tenants if you select that it's a 'New move in' because Cubbi will automatically deduct the first rent payment. 

It is however important to note that Cubbi has been built specifically for residential leases so all leases and requirements are based on the Residential Tenancy Agreement per state.

References:

Realestate.com.au's  Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) - Residential

4.1.6.    Generic listings: Listings which are not in relation to a specific lot number or address (for example ‘various properties available’).