Hello Everyone,

Setting: Victoria, BC

I'm having trouble keeping my employees in town. It's too damn expensive here. I'm paying them $26-32 an hour and they are still struggling. Not just the money, there is a really bad rental shortage here too.

I'm thinking of buying a house and renting rooms to some of them.

My plans are:

Buy a 4 or 5 room house for around a million bucks.

Rent them out to employees @ around $500 a month. Currently one guy is paying $600(which is extremely rare). He has NO kitchen. He is getting renovicted. Another guy is paying $900 and is getting renovicted. I want them to be able to save a bit of money for their futures as well.

Hire a cleaner to come in and clean the communal areas on a regular basis. I don't want any fights at work about who cleans what.

Probably put a lock on their room doors for them to be secure.

Probably need to make up some sort of contract.

Can I take their rent off their paycheques?

Tell me if I'm smart or stupid to be thinking about this?

I'm maybe posting in the wrong spot since I'm not necessarily looking for financial advice I don't think, but you guys are a good group of smart people and thought maybe you could help me out.

Anyone ever been involved in anything like this or have any wisdom for me?

Edit: Hi guys, I just want to thank everyone for commenting. Opinions and ideas for or against, I'm grateful for the comments. It's why I posted it. I expected to get comments swinging both directions and I need to hear all sides.

A little additional info:

• Why don't you take the 1 million and pay your employees more you cheap asshole?

  — There's a few reasons for this. People not familiar with Victoria/Vancouver real estate don't know that there aren't a lot of places to rent. We're a huge tech town and a huge university town. There are basically zero places to rent with hundreds of applications on every rental open online. Rental postings here get 100-300 applications in a matter of days. My guys can't just make more money and get a place with it. I know a lot of you think I'm a rich asshole, but you're wrong. I'm trying to do what's best for these guys. It's why I'm here and it's why I'm asking for opinions and ideas. Another problem is my business is SMOKING HOT in the summer months and can be slow in the winter months. If I give everyone a 5-10 buck raise (which I guess technically is possible, since I'm talking about buying a million dollar house), then in the winter I need to lay off half the staff when we're slow. I really really don't want to do that. I can do maybe do huge summer bonuses. That is something worth looking into.

• I've never once hid behind the fact that I'm running a business to make money. Just like every single business on earth. I'm not working from the beach in Hawaii and I'm not driving fancy cars while paying my employees minimum wage. I'm at work every day with my guys. I haven't had a vacation in 3 years. I pick up guys, I drop them off, I give bonuses. I started giving gas allowances on every pay cheque when the gas prices went crazy. These employees are important to me. I'm nothing without them. My lowest paid guy is $24 an hour full time and he started a month ago. He will be $26 at his 3 month review if he works out well. I've got ex-convicts. I've got high school drop outs. I've got people of all types. So please don't tell me I'm an asshole and that I don't pay my staff well. More money doesn't always equal more housing. It's not that simple.

• Again, if there was excess rental properties in Victoria, this post would NOT have been made. I would pay my buys $5 more an hour and be done with it. Rental postings get 100-300 applications in 2 days here. There's no where for them to go.