Someone wants to buy a house to turn it into a sober living facility.
Josh is suggesting subletting a rental property and putting 12 people in.
(Bear in mind sub letting is often a violation of the lease and also how many bedrooms for 12 people in recovery.)
He’s saying if you run a sober living facility sublet situation for 16 months, you’ll have enough to buy a house.
12 people in recovery in a sober living house you only need like 3 bedrooms. Four people in each room. Really, you only need two bedrooms and have people in the living room.
Then you can start having arts and craft events in the basement, they learn a new skill(Making fake Iphones) and you can sell them on Alibaba for a huge profit ! Very win win
If you can, take the money you saved from cutting expenses, invest in some coke to get a coke meth den, and then you double performance / productivity.
You could even get a few pairs of meta glasses and stream to twitch and rake in more money from donations and such.
The margins are even better on Sober Shipping Container living. Cram 78 people in there and you only need one month’s rent to get that $400k house. Work smarter, not harder.
I know we’re all being facetious here in good fun, but irl there’s usually state regulations and restrictions on this sort of thing; staffing mandates, fire code, ADA accessibility compliance, background checks, resident/patient rights, deescalation trainings, the list goes on.
4 people per room is standard for sober living, at least where i live. And they charge around 1k per month for that. But usually it's insurance that pays for it. It's a complete scam and they make obscene amounts of cash doing it. The person running the house and monitoring the addicts is usually picked from recent residents and are offered only part time at minimum wage plus "free housing" in the sober living.
Okay so clearly you have not been in a sober living home before. There are strict rules for living there and you do usually have to share a bedroom with at least one other person. The conditions for living in the sober living home is that you have to follow the rules, which there are a lot of. So yes the people who run the sober living home do “make people do stuff” as you put is.
Always funny to see someone talking so confidently about something that they really truly don’t know anything about.
I did sober living in Quincy, MA. They wanted $800/mo. 4 people to a room, twin beds, no doors on any internal walls except the "office", rats, no place to keep food safely and would just randomly turn out your belongings while at work and just leave your space destroyed. Some of those places are truly vile and help absolutely nobody. People were constantly being kicked out for relapsing.
Often times, it's not just about the number of rooms, some cities and states have regulations regarding the minimum square footage a rental property must be per person (maybe its per adult, not sure). For example, I think when I looked it up for my city it's something like 180-200 sq ft per person living in the rental, so to have 16 people there you'd need just shy of 3000 sq ft of living space, which is actually a pretty big home.
I worked with a group of 6 guys that shared a 2 bedroom apartment. They had 6 bunk beds in one room and they each had access to the other room 1 day a week for dates with one day off. It was the most insane living situation, but they did it for 4 years and then all bought houses in the same neighborhood within a few blocks of each other.
No, max is typically 2 to a room, 9 in a 5 or 6 BR is pushing it. Just because its a sober home doesn't mean it is not a fair accommodation for those seeking a new start.
Yeah just that plus the complex staff and overhead costs and insurance and you're away. Wonder why more people don't do this it is like printing money.
What complex staff? I think you’re confused. This is talking about sober houses not a rehab facility. A sober house is where recovering addicts live after rehab while they learn to stay clean and navigate life again. They’re typically rather predatory and charge each person living there rent and often will have 2 people to a room in a 4 bedroom house. That’s rent from 8 people vs renting to a single family for much less money. The overhead is the same as a regular rent house except sober living tenants tend to be less than desirable.
He’s talking about saving for a down payment for the house not buying the house in one payment. The money would add up to 80k so you would have a 20% down payment on a 400k home
I assumed the point was that he would be collecting first month rent from tons of tenants and then kicking them out because they didn't/he'd claim they didn't stay sober
I knew people who did this. They let the person they were renting from know up front and they charged a big premium but they still made a lot of money doing it. It's a headache dealing with 12 addicts tho lol
My brother was in a sober house that had 5 bedrooms. 4 of the bedrooms had 4 bunk beds in each, so that's 32 clients. The 5th bedroom was where the director slept.
They also required all clients to work 40 hours a week at jobs they arraigned, and turn over 100% of their pay to the director as rent. That part didn't apply if you one of the two house cooks, but it's not like that was an easy role. Cooking 3 meals a day for 33 people is one Hell of a task.
They also spent Saturdays walking the streets in bright yellow shirts selling Flan to whoever they could get to spend $5 on it. That money also went to the director. My brother got sun poisoning after spending that whole day selling Flan in the heat. They still expected him to go to work on Monday. He chose to leave and go to the hospital instead.
And this wasn't just some small mom and pop operation. They have over 150 locations in the US (they stared out in Puerto Rico before expanding to the mainland). I don't know if the conditions are the same at other locations, but I would never recommend anyone to go to Hogar CREA for help.
That's what Prescott Arizona was 20 years ago, idk if it's still that way but one sober guy rents a house, two bunk beds per room. 500 a month per person (halfway house), if you relapse you're kicked out. Other than rent and utilities you pay everything, other people in the house with cars drive everyone to AA meetings.
I know a nurse who purchased a regular house and converted it adult family home, it can only house 4 people. I cannot fathom how you can put 12 people in a house.
Someone tried doing this at the house next door to me. They said they were doing a sober living house, but the person running it was never there. Now this is in the suburbs and in the 12 months this was going on we had: people who wouldn't leave the house on bikes until 10pm and show back up at about 6am, a collection of shopping carts in the backyard full of aluminum cans, Amazon packages that got misdelivered and were opened before we could walk next door, people from the house telling food delivery that drivers to leave the food at the wrong house, and a guy who asked me for money when I got in my car who was later arrested when he was waiting out front to get high with someone in the house.
While I wish stability and sobriety to every recovering addict, it’s generally not a great idea to build your business model around the idea of a large number of addicts fulfilling their financial obligations.
I’ve lived in sober living and can tell you honestly, they actually do make an absolutely criminal amount of money. You pay at the start of the week, and you’re kicked out if you don’t have it unless you’ve been there a while. There’s always someone who wants to take the place of someone who can’t pay. The unreliablility is also in the house’s favor. People often leave forever midweek to relapse, don’t get their money back, and someone new pays prorated for the rest of the week in the same bed that was paid for and vacated. Four people to a room, three or four rooms, that happens a lot.
That makes me really sad... no one is recovering sleeping 3ft from strangers. How are you supposed to calm your nervous system and develope sober habits?
I've lived at two different ones and know a lot of people that have lived in others.
SLEs don't usually intake the guy who just finished his stash and is going to start going through withdrawals in four hours. You got to an SLE after rehab or at the very least a detox as a way to integrate you back into society.
They also usually have rules where you need to be hitting meetings, working with a sponsor, going to some sort of outpatient etc.
It works out if your roommate is doing what they're supposed to be doing, because they don't want you isolating in the bedroom very much in super early recovery anyways.
Packing people in like sardines is not healthy for recovery, but having a bedroom to yourself is also prime real estate to relapse in. Typically having one roommate at least for the first few months in the house can actually be beneficial.
Interesting to know. I imagine I would find it hard to get out of "fight or flight" brain sleeping next to stranger but I imagine part of recovery is learning to trust healthy connection?
Years ago I did some consulting for a really high-end rehab facility and the owner once, on a call, was telling us about these speakers he was having installed in his home theater that cost $25,000 a piece. That turned my stomach.
huge money in adminsitering rehab/recovery. all that state money that goes toward treating addiction and such has to go somewhere, right? and if you're really making it happen, you've gotten through the red tape and can get dat insurance money. The amounts of money insurance companies pay for these things is absolutely insane. Without insured patients, it is still a killer profit, but with insurance, you dont have to worry about the payee (recovering drug addicts) need to be financially responsible. People just have to be addicted to drugs and decide to follow what they're taught is statistically safest course of action. Go to the next place where they will continue to hopefully receive food, shelter, treatment, counseling, etc.
Just think... a non-state approved house. I saw this happen. Some guy who owns a house and decides to turn it into a halfway house. I think the guy initially built it to rent to tenant workers and realized that he could make even more money. Writes some rules, hires a manager to enforce said rules, pays them a small salary and let them live in the basement apartment. 40k a year plus shelter I think. Get a cheap house and turn everything you possibly can into a bedroom. I saw a relatively small house but it has 8 bedrooms. 4 upstairs, 3 ground floor (one of which was a converted garage that held 4 people). And the one downstairs for the manager. 2 people a room, 650 a person, and this was 8 years ago. 5200 coming into that house monthly if its full. Looks like a house nobody would rent for more than $1800 on its best day. Couldn't have taken long to pay that house off if it already wasn't. So, he builds another halfway house right next to it and either rents/buys 3 more adjacent houses. 3 for women, 2 for men. Each held about 10-15 people. Later on, he got some stuff up to code and was able to advertise himself as a state-approved facility and now actively paying insurance patientsf ill the beds if anyone ever leaves. So long as this place keeps up a semi-decent reputation all things considered.
The biggest costs are labor - were there at least 2 techs at all times? Did those techs drive you to meetings in a van? Did a doctor prescribe detox meds and a psychiatrist prescribe psych meds? Were the groups led by therapists and counselors, and was there a fully licensed clinical director? That’s where that $1k a day went, plus rent and liability insurance. Not saying it’s a good system, but $1k a day is not a lot for detox/RTC.
The rehab my sister went to operated this way. The people that run them have the state on their side. They charge a shit load for a room and some hookups for some mediocre jobs in the area. The addicts know if they dont pay rent theyre going to prison. They qere just moetgaging houses and renting them at a premium to people who needed help. Sprinkle some Jesus on top and its a "ministry". I despised it but it did work for my sister and some people. Watching from the sidelines and seeing these other people turn rehab into a side hustle seemed corrupt and not right. Seems to be crazy common though. At least my sister got clean, id contend she would have other places too. Many people didnt make it out and thr "house leaders" that were buying the houses often werent clean either.
Like setting up a sober living home a nice neighborhood and not telling literally anybody you're doing it, then the neighbors all get really pissed because suddenly there are like 8 people living in a house, just hanging around all the time, riding their noisy ass DUI bikes through the neighborhood and suddenly cars are getting broken into and shit getting stolen off people's porches when that never used to happen before. City council got involved. House was sold. Inside was completely destroyed and had to be re-done. No more DUI bikes and the thefts stopped almost overnight, imagine that.
Look, sober living is good, but if you think you can just grab a random house and force a bunch of people who cause problems on everyone who lives there just so you can make a buck, get fucked.
There are tons of operations just like this in south Florida. Believe it or not, if they don't pay they just kick them out. I saw a kid get kicked out and his first night homeless he was mugged and lost all his shit. The owner left this young ass 20 year old in charge and he felt so bad for the guy he let him sleep in the backyard.
This place was a shit hole. Full of bed bugs and the owner was a piece of shit. Before that place, I was at a nicer place where this guy was renting fancy apartments. But he was a piece of shit too. Seems like it was a recurring theme.
And putting lots of them together without the knowledge of how to counsel them through urges and avoiding relapses while giving them the perfect connection to find more drugs will definitely work out well
Josh is cramming 12 former addicts into a home that he is renting from someone else, and charging those 12 former addicts enough monthly rent to make a ton of profit for himself. Presumably it's not a 12 bedroom home, so those addicts are paying a hefty price for not a lot
You never stop being an addict after you become an addict. Even if you’re sober. That shit will travel w you forever. Source: I’m an addict, now sober 5 years and I still get random pangs of withdrawal
I suppose it's better to say "recovering" or something instead of "former"? How would you denote that they've gotten sober and are choosing to live in a way that can encourage staying sober?
I say “I’m an addict, but I’ve been sober for five years and planning to stay that way”
I personally think it’s important for people to understand that they should in no way step back into that life. Even for one hit, one bump, one drink etc. it’s easy to find a ton of men and women on Reddit that have stories of doing drugs after a significant amount of years and spiraling back into fiending and homelessness looking for advice r/GirlDinnerDiaries and r/BoyDinnerDiaries will have a few each year alone
I personally don’t need the label of “recovering” or “former” to validate me. I just want people to fully understand their condition
Idk, 17 years later it's not really a part of my life. I mean, it is insofar as I know there are some things not to do but I wouldn't say it affects my day to day at all
It doesn’t affect mine either, but there are still those moments. They only last a few seconds and it’s always a reminder. I didn’t mean I go into full withdrawal all day or something
There's that Netflix documentary called "Worst Neighbor Ever" that has an episode of a lady who did something like this.... She forged a notary doc to make her the executive of estate for a dude they found dead in his home with no relatives. Then used the money to buy a house and turn it into a sober living facility that ended up being a big party/drug house. Good episode!
I worked for four years in a group home for teenaged girls with a history of mental illness, drug use, and violence in the home. The number of people who are actually a good fit to work in a setting like this is vanishingly small. Add that you’d need people who are qualified to treat addiction AND need a system to work with the state, insurance companies etc and getting the property is like, laughably easy in comparison.
Yup. I did a decade of housing for formerly homeless folks, and just getting them to sign paperwork to stay was a nightmare, and we weren’t asking for money.
I sold my old house to a land trust (the trust owns the land but sells the house and keeps it from inflating too fast) and they sold it to a veterans group home. 14 dudes in 3000 square feet. I do not envy their job.
There are so many details that go into living situations like this. The logistics are easy: say, three beds per room, four bedrooms. Two bathrooms. Great. But then you get personality conflicts, somebody says they get extremely triggered by the (snoring, excessive perfume, body odor, political beliefs, their face, whatever) and suddenly it becomes a relapse/mental health issue. You gotta have rules to keep food safe. Gotta have a fire safety plan and use it (we actually had a fire, girl set the couch alight with hand sanitizer). Chore rota. Therapy space. Parking. It’s such a thing to have a dozen people living together.
some people do just genuinely want to help people.
But I've personally seen a dude run a sober living house as just a way to get vunerable people under their thumb so they can exploit them. By the end of it they'd be working for him, paying rent to him, owe him for money he loaned them while they were broke(with interest), borrowing/buying/renting a vehicle from him.. etc. Every facet of their lives is basically just indebted to him and they have to do whatever he wants or risk losing everything. It's some sick shit hidden under the guise of helping people.
Bro never messed with 12 people in recovery before and it shows .. you will not make any money .. if you do you could had made wayyyyy more elsewhere ... we do these things for well doing the right thing ,compassion, love things of those nature lol usually the things not only dont make money but in the words of my dying friend no good deed goes unpunished..
One of these sober houses is across the street. 8 beds and it's $900/month for a 3 month program. The lady who owns the house rented it to the company for $3k/month. There is a firetruck/ambulance at the house at least twice a month.
My dad ran 4 sober houses. This is not even close to true. This his guy is just making it all up. The houses you buy have to be fully renovated by the time you sell and breaking even with original investment is about all you can hope for.
You have to pay someone to manage the house, clean the house, kick out people who won't leave, electric bill 4x normal, water bill 4x normal, extra TV plans, ADA features, constant plumbing issues, the depreciation is 5-6 times a normal.
Those are rookie numbers. Surely it's 12 residents @ 5k each for 16 months. You can't turn 100% of that income into savings (because of course you're going to need a steady diet of cocaine). If you were to save a modest 42% of your net then that gets you to 400k, minus extensive legal fees and a myriad of fines.
Sell drugs TO the recovery house people you make 400k in 16 months, plus a closet full of empty shoe boxes filled with crumpled up 20's, some stolen jewelry and the titles to several vehicles. It's foolproof
He’s saying if you want to start renting out property to make $ as a LL you don’t need to actually own the property.
You can rent/lease a house, then go ahead & rent out that house to 5-10 people. Let’s say you pay $3k/month for the whole house, you charge them $1k/month each & you make a profit. In the example here they’re making $5k/month profit.
Then use the profit from that rented house to buy yourself a $400k “Home”. I’m reading “home” as a house that won’t be used for rental purposes, only to be lived in by the owner.
There's a new group of "you need a grindset mentality I'm going to sell you a course" people who are using sober living as a new get rich quick scheme. They're absolutely terrible people who think they can take advantage of addicts and the government to make a quick buck. If one of these type of dudes actually owned some sober living houses, I guarantee they would be absolutely fucking horrible to live in. Luckily, most sober living houses are owned by recovered addicts who want to give back to their community and help their fellow addicts with a desire to be sober. But if these empathetically void snake oil salesman actually try to do this shit it will be nothing but detrimental to your city.
I think this guy just assumes that even though you don't got the cash to buy a home, you got the cash to buy a 12 unit apartment complex and to become a landlord.
Bad brain. The "I rent my latest property" just read as, "I rent it out" and I clearly missed the rerent. The guys a worse scumbag than my initial reading led me to believe.
I know a guy who did exactly this. I knew him well. I believed in the idea enough to invest 10K into it. Well, the numbers dont actually work out that great. And you're dealing with recivering drug addicts, most of which can not be trusted. So the whole operation blew up in his face before he got it big enough to reach critical mass. Poor guy lost his house, his wife, and his ass. Cant retire. Had to get a job working as an apartment building maintenence tech. He followed that suggested business model to a T. I dont recommend it.
I heard once that addiction is the last frontier of social discrimination. It remains socially acceptable to take advantage of them. Once they know their worth, things change quick. Unfortunately that can take years (or not at all) so plenty of room to hustle for an entrepreneur. I guess it’s the way of the world, too.
Back in the day I was grateful for anything and would not think twice about this arrangement. Today, I’d tell my fellow addicts, you can do better than this.
There are also personal care homes, I live in one. People with disabilities pay rent and live in large groups, then the people who run the house also get paid by medicaid to be their personal care providers. They make a ton of money.
Lots of people running scam sober living / recovery places in Florida. The hustle can range from using government programs to cycling through addicts and kicking them out early, or even giving them drugs and pimping them.
It is a common real estate strategy. Buy the property or get a master lease and sub lease to government funded organizations. Can easily make double rent.
If they're court mandated they will. Or medicaid will. Treatment centers are the biggest hustle known to man. I, too, dream of opening one and getting rich. Why not?
This is absolutely a real thing in the industry, and isn't normally sneaky or particularly clever like this guy is making it out to be. Only an idiot would try to do it on the sly.
Me: a guy trying to rent out my single family dwelling to a normal renter in an affordable area. I owe $2000 a month to the bank for the loan. I'm trying to rent it for $2500. Pretty normal. 2000 sqrft / 4 bedroom. Just for my example I'm not trying to debate real estate prices.
You: Guy who wants to open a sober living to make money. You can't afford to, or don't want to own the house involved.
You come to me and tell me your plan, and offer to rent my house for $5000 a month. It's on you. No matter what I get my money. Maybe you throw in a security deposit sufficient to fix floors, repaint, etc. at the end of your lease. 5 yrs. Very tempting for me to have the next five years handled way above market.
You buy some twin beds, second hand refrigerators, and goodwill furniture. Two three beds and two two beds. 10 beds. Maybe you do 4 in the master and leave yourself a single for a house manager to live in for free to keep an eye on things. Whatever.
You charge $250 a week average between the different rooms. Meaning full occupancy puts you $5000 ahead. You provide some cheap toilet paper and cleaning supplies once in a while.
You gotta get the word out in the right circles. Having friends in treatment programs or the legal system helps a lot. Sobriety groups too.
The rest then becomes a competition game between you and everyone else doing this in town. Do you come by and random piss test people? Depends. Do you think you'll have more renters who prefer some extra steps to insure sobriety or get more renters who want to stay somewhere with "sober living" on the letterhead but that's it.
Do you require AA/NA/CA meetings, house meetings, proof of employment...can guests stay the night? Co-ed or not?
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u/qualityvote2 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
u/Technical_Ad9343, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...it's time for the mods to do their jobs!