A Charlotte five-bedroom converted to seven rooms shows how co-living can transform cash flow. Review the numbers and the caveats.
In brief: The Hunters Trace conversion is a modeled case study, not a forecast. A five-bedroom Charlotte house that earned about $26,000 in gross revenue as a conventional rental was reconfigured into seven private rooms for roughly $18,000, and the model shows gross revenue near $93,000 and NOI near $52,000. Below, we show where the increase comes from, which costs rise with it, and which questions to ask before you apply the same logic to a California property. If you only remember one thing, remember this: the same house can behave very differently depending on how it is leased and managed, and the upside only counts after realistic vacancy, expenses, and zoning approvals.
Numbers make the case better than theory. This post walks through the Hunters Trace conversion, a case study in our Co-Living Master Dossier that compares a traditional single-family rental with the same house reconfigured as co-living. The property is a five-bedroom home in Charlotte, North Carolina, converted to seven private rooms.
The Starting Point
As a conventional rental, the five-bedroom house produced roughly $26,000 per year in gross revenue and about $13,000 per year in net operating income (NOI). That is a respectable result for a single-family home, but it depends on one lease and one household.
The Conversion
The plan was to reconfigure the layout so that the house offered seven private bedrooms while keeping shared kitchen and living areas. The renovation budget in the case study was about $18,000, a modest figure because the strategy focused on smart partitioning and cosmetic work rather than major construction.
The Results
After conversion, the model shows:
- Gross revenue rising from roughly $26,000 to about $93,000 per year, an increase of roughly 250 percent.
- NOI rising from roughly $13,000 to about $52,000 per year, an increase of about 300 percent.
- A modeled return of about 15.4 percent on the capital invested in the conversion.
In plain terms, the same house produced several times the income after the change.
Why the Numbers Move So Much
Three forces drive the difference:
- Rent per room beats rent per house. Individual rooms at an all-in price can add up to far more than a single household would pay for the whole property.
- More rentable units. Going from five bedrooms to seven increases the number of paying residents by 40 percent.
- Bundled services. Furnishing, utilities, and internet can be packaged into one monthly price, which many residents value for its simplicity.
Operating costs also rise, because there is more turnover, more utility use, and more management. NOI grows less dramatically than gross revenue would suggest on its own, but in this case it still grew substantially.
What the Case Study Does Not Say
Good analysis includes the caveats. Before you apply this example to your own property, keep these points in mind:
- It is one property in one market. Rents, regulations, and demand vary widely. A Charlotte result does not guarantee a California result.
- Zoning matters. Occupancy limits on unrelated residents can make or break a conversion. Verify local rules first.
- Management is real work. Higher income usually requires active management and a community-minded approach.
- Ramp-up takes time. A new co-living house does not fill overnight. Plan for a lease-up period.
- Projections are not promises. The figures are modeled, not guaranteed.
How to Use This in Your Own Analysis
Treat the Hunters Trace case as a template for questions, not as a forecast. For any property you are considering, ask:
- How many legal, usable bedrooms can this layout support?
- What would renovation and furnishing realistically cost?
- What are comparable room rents in this specific submarket?
- What are the full operating costs, including utilities, software, and management?
- What happens to returns if occupancy is lower than expected?
Run the numbers under conservative, base, and optimistic scenarios. If the deal only works in the optimistic case, it is probably not the right deal.
Download the Investment Guide
Our Co-Living Investment Guide includes the full Hunters Trace breakdown, a template for your own analysis, and the assumptions behind the figures.
Figures are drawn from a modeled case study and are for illustration only. They are not a promise of future results and not investment advice.