How to rent out rooms in your house and share it with other gay men in later life

An example: Alan's house near Wilton Drive

Alan is made up. We use him to show how this can work, and every figure in his story comes from a named source or is marked as our estimate.

Alan is 64 and has lived in the same Manhattan apartment for 25 years. He's single, his friends keep leaving the city, and the winters are getting harder. He doesn't want a retirement community, and he doesn't want to grow old alone in a one-bedroom either.

So he sells the apartment and buys a four-bedroom house in Oakland Park, Florida, a short bike ride from Wilton Drive. Each bedroom has its own bathroom. He keeps the biggest room and rents the other three to gay men around his age. Sunday dinner by the pool is the one fixed date in the house calendar.

Oakland Park sits right next to Wilton Manors, the small city by Fort Lauderdale that the Williams Institute at UCLA ranked second in the US for same-sex couples (NBC News, 2018). Between April and June 2026, the typical single-family house sold for $532,500 in Oakland Park, against $875,000 in Wilton Manors (Miami Realtors).

What this example assumes

• Alan owns his apartment outright, with no mortgage left to pay off.
• His profit on the sale is within the $250,000 he can make free of federal income tax (more on that below). If it's bigger, tax will take a share.
• He pays a 5% broker's fee and about $5,000 in legal and other selling costs. Fees are negotiable, so his could be lower.
• He buys the Florida house for $800,000 and spends about 2% of that on buying costs such as title insurance and the inspection.
• The running costs below are our estimates unless a source is named. Yours will depend on the house.

Selling in New York

The typical Manhattan apartment sold for $1,275,000 between July and September 2026 (UrbanDigs data for Keller Williams NYC). Say Alan's sells for that.

The seller pays New York State transfer tax of $2 for every $500, which is 0.4% (NYS Department of Taxation). New York City adds its own transfer tax of 1.425% on a home sold for more than $500,000 (NYC Department of Finance), and the seller usually pays that too (StreetEasy).

If the apartment has been his main home for at least two of the last five years, up to $250,000 of his profit is free of federal income tax, or $500,000 for a married couple filing jointly (IRS, Topic 701).

What the rooms bring in

Zumper puts the average rent for a room in Fort Lauderdale at $1,341 a month in November 2026. Alan asks $1,300 a room, bills included. Three rooms bring in $46,800 a year. We've allowed for one room sitting empty for two months between housemates, which takes off $2,600.

What it costs to run the house

Oakland Park's combined property tax rate for 2025 is 20.3054 mills, or about $20 for every $1,000 of taxable value (Broward County Property Appraiser). On an $800,000 house that's about $16,000 a year. The homestead exemption on Alan's own part of the house brings it down a little, but the rented part doesn't get one (see below).

For insurance, Insurance.com put Florida's average premium at $8,471 a year in 2026, the highest of any state. That was for a sample policy with $300,000 of dwelling coverage, and Alan's house is worth more, so we've used $10,000.

Before anyone moves in

Start with property tax. Florida's homestead exemption lowers the tax on your main home. But in Furst v. Rebholz (April 6, 2023), the Florida Supreme Court ruled that "the owner is not entitled to a homestead tax exemption on the rented portion" (the ruling). The Sarasota owner in that case faced about $7,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest (Florida Realtors). So tell the Broward County Property Appraiser that you plan to rent rooms, and ask how it changes your bill, before the first housemate arrives.

Then ask the city's zoning office whether renting rooms in your house needs a permit or a business tax receipt, and whether there's a limit on how many unrelated people can live in one house.

Tell your insurer you'll have tenants, too, and ask in writing whether your policy covers rooms rented to them.

Florida's state laws give LGBTQ+ people less protection than many states, although cities like Wilton Manors and Fort Lauderdale score well on their own. Our guide to Florida explains what that means day to day.

Your housemates are tenants

Florida's landlord and tenant law covers any "dwelling unit", which it defines to include "a structure or part of a structure that is rented for use as a home, residence, or sleeping place" (Florida Statutes 83.43). A room rented in your house fits that wording, so expect your housemates to have a tenant's rights, even though it's your house and you live there too.

Two things follow. If you rent month to month, either of you has to give at least 30 days' notice before the end of a monthly period (83.57). And if it goes wrong, you can't change the locks, cut off the power or move someone's things out to make them leave (83.67). That has to go through the court. Florida also has rules on how you hold a deposit and when you return it (83.49).

So give each housemate a written lease for his room, and add a house agreement for the day-to-day: guests, quiet hours, the kitchen, the pool, and how you'll raise a problem. Start with a trial period, say three months, and sit down together at the end of it. This isn't legal advice. Have a Florida landlord and tenant lawyer draft the lease and check how the law applies to your house.

Choosing three people to live with

Alan meets every candidate at least twice, once in town and once at the house, and he asks two friends to meet the ones he likes. He's choosing people he'll see at breakfast for years, so he takes his time.

It's still his home, and that makes it different from roommates sharing as equals. He says early on what's fixed: which rooms are shared, the house rules, and that he deals with repairs. The questions in our senior roommate guide still apply, from daily routines and guests to how out each of you is and what you'd do for each other if one of you got ill.

Check ID and ask for a reference from a past landlord. Take the deposit and first month's rent only once the lease is signed, and give a receipt.

Advertising the rooms

Be careful with the wording of your ad. The federal Fair Housing Act exempts some small landlords, including some owners who live in the property, from parts of the law. But that exemption is narrow, and it doesn't cover advertising: an ad can't state a preference based on things like sex, religion or race (42 U.S.C. 3603 and 3604(c)). Local laws can add their own rules on top. So describe the house, the rooms and the people who live there now, and check the wording with a local fair housing office or a lawyer before you post.

Taxes on the rent

Rent is income, and the IRS expects you to report it. When you rent out part of your home, you split shared costs like insurance and utilities between the rented part and your own (IRS Publication 527). Florida has no state personal income tax (Florida Department of Revenue). A tax preparer can set it up properly in the first year.

Thinking ahead

This is shared living, not a care arrangement. Alan's housemates are tenants and friends, not carers. If he one day needs help at home, that's a separate arrangement, and a homeshare is one way to do it. His will also needs to say what happens to the house, and to the people living in it, if he dies. Our guide to estate planning covers the documents to sort out.

If the house works well, it can grow into something bigger. Our senior co-housing guide explains how groups go from a few people to a shared site.

Finding housemates on Among Our People

You can start a project in Community Living and describe the house, the rooms and the rent. Starting a project is free. You can also list each room so people looking for a room nearby can find it, and post on the notice board that you're looking for housemates.

Some members verify their ID, which means matching a photo ID to a live selfie. That isn't a background check. Meet in a public place first, and do your own reference checks before anyone signs a lease.