how much should I charge my husband to rent from me?

A little backstory.

My husband and I have a non-traditional marriage. About 3 years ago my husband suggested we completely split our finances, and things have been separate ever since. We rent an apartment together and both pay our half of the rent and utilities, pay for our own food, cars, gas, etc. and fund our own hobbies. This has worked out quite well for us, since we are both decent income earners and child-free.

There is a home I would like to purchase (hello rising housing costs) that would be at the tippy top of my budget without a renter. My husband is not purchasing this house with me, I am buying it myself (he doesn't want to own a primary residence), however he does want to live there and rent from me. With him contributing a reasonable portion of rent, it would be well within my budget and a good purchase.

We are trying to figure out the most equitable way to calculate what his rent payment would be, BEFORE I go through with the purchase of the house.

A few ideas were:

-He splits the payment with me every month (mortgage & property tax) *not ideal for him, since it's a higher cost than similar apartments he could rent right now

-We evaluate based on the sq. footage or bed/bath of his portion, run comps of similar apartments in the area, and lock him in at that rate *not ideal for me, since I'll be subsidizing his living as rentals in the area go up, and paying a higher price for my equal portion of the house

-We run comps yearly on what he would pay if renting on his own and I raise his rent payments based on that number *could work for both of us, but I'm not sure how much to raise his rent since apartments usually can't do that

Also of note: I am basically a free live-in maid, I do all of the dishes and house cleaning. So in that sense I do think him paying more than a normal apartment he could rent on his own gives him added benefits. (edited)

What would you consider to be the MOST objectively fair?

TL;DR - Married, finances completely separate. I want to buy a home, husband does not, but he wants to rent from me. Any suggestions for how to calculate his rent fairly?

Submitted May 02, 2022 at 09:30PM by fisherwatts https://ift.tt/bjo4t3f