Here we go.. airbnb side hustle time

[jacquespluto]

Wife stays at home with our 2 year old and is eager to help speed up our path to fire.  We live in a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house where 2 bedrooms and 1 bath are located downstairs along with a separate living room.  It's a daylight basement setup with a separate downstairs entrance and patio.  We rarely go down there with the exception of laundry or if we want to watch a loud movie while our child sleeps.  It's basically 1,000 sq. ft. of wasted space.  Very mustachian.

About a month ago we decided we would join the airbnb community and offer up our downstairs living area.  We installed a sliding barn door downstairs with a lock to secure our upstairs area.  We really needed a new mattress anyway so we ordered a T&N which now gives us 2 spare beds for downstairs.  Keurig, small fridge and microwave, linens and towels, and some basic kitchenware and we now have an income unit.

In total we spent about $700 including the barn door to get us where we can list our space.  We have had it up for 2 weeks and already have 3 separate bookings totaling 10 nights over the next month and a half.  This adds up to about $750.  My wife will manage most of the inquiries and cleaning.  We figure if it doesn't go well and we need to pull the plug, at least we now have basically paid for everything with the bookings.  We wanted the barn door anyway so we can market the downstairs as income potential when we go to sell our house someday.

Main concerns is getting good reviews as the barn door doesn't provide complete sound proof between upstairs and downstairs and we do have a 2 year old as well as a dog.  The good news is that all 3 rooms downstairs including the living room have a door which helps with noise.

We aren't naive to think there won't be issues but it's nice to know that our investment is already paid for and we can pull the plug if we aren't comfortable.  Our goal is to make $500-$1,000 per month which would mean having it occupied about 20%-40% of the time.  We also sometimes have family in town staying with us and we will need days in between stays to clean.

I'd be curious if anyone is doing something similar and how the experience has been.  Any advise would be appreciated! 

[erutio]

I'll be curious to hear how this goes.
Where in Oregon do you live?  Is is urban, surburban, or rural?

We have a very similar house set up, and I've brought up this exact same idea to my wife a few times, but having our 2 year old is exactly the reason she does not want to do it.  Not to scare you or anything, but having a renters walk away with a keurig machine is one thing, but having someone take away a baby is another..
We also live in a rural college town, so the market for renters may be low anyways.

[jacquespluto]

We are definitely suburban, outside of Portland.  Some people prefer to stay outside of downtown and be in a good location to go to wineries, the beach and nearby hiking.  We also expect some business travelers, in fact our first booking is someone doing consulting work with a large company down the road.

Yes, that was our hesitation as well with the 2 year old.  However, as I mentioned we have a secure lock on the barn door downstairs and are also going to be very careful screening people that request to stay.  There isn't an easy way to get upstairs at all and breaking through the lock would be no different than breaking through a window or sliding glass door.  If someone really wants in they will get in and I just have to think that someone that has paid to stay at your place is most likely not the type of person that wants to break into your house. 

We actually stayed with a family in Vancouver, BC that had a very similar setup and they had a 3 year old girl as well.  I chatted with the hosts and so far they have had very positive experiences over 1 year in.

It can be very difficult evaluating the risks of the choices we make especially when a kid is involved.  I try to keep things in perspective as much as possible and remember that on any given day getting into a car with our 2 year old will be the most dangerous position we will put him in.   We also plan on doing some extensive overseas travel in the near future and I know that we have to be comfortable traveling through crowded places and staying in locations with other travelers and hosts.

[Choices]

Your plan sounds great!

To help build good reviews, you might consider providing a fruit bowl and earplugs for your guests. It's the little things that make a big impression, and Leight sleepers earplugs are inexpensive awesome!

Putting a fan in the bedroom can also add white noise to make dog/toddler noises less noticeable.

[jacquespluto]

Thanks for the suggestion on earplugs.  We talked about that as well but appreciate the tip on the Leight sleepers brand.  We have a fan that we will include as well.

Fruit is a great idea and we will probably include some sort of breakfast/snack bars.

[RedwoodDreams]

Sounds like a great setup! From my airbnb experiences, I really appreciate it if the owner is forthcoming about anything guests should know in advance. In your case, I think fully disclosing that they might hear toddler feet and/or occasional dog barks helps you weed out people who'll write bad reviews, and has a side benefit of attracting generally lower maintenance guests, and even other families who are also worried about being the noisy ones :-)

We once stayed in a sweet older home that was great except the owner didn't disclose that there was a guy living off and on in the garage, which was right below the master bedroom. We could hear him coughing beneath our feet because it was an older home. Not cool. Place was expensive too.

Another place we stayed in was a downstairs apartment in a victorian in Portland. Upstairs neighbors were LOUD and partied all night. Owner should have mentioned possible party atmosphere, and provided some white noise fans! If you know what you're getting into you're much less likely to complain.

Good luck!

[frugalmaybe]

I'll be curious to hear how this goes.
Where in Oregon do you live?  Is is urban, surburban, or rural?

We have a very similar house set up, and I've brought up this exact same idea to my wife a few times, but having our 2 year old is exactly the reason she does not want to do it.  Not to scare you or anything, but having a renters walk away with a keurig machine is one thing, but having someone take away a baby is another..
We also live in a rural college town, so the market for renters may be low anyways.

that's almost as bad as stealing the unused soap!

[Sonos]

We do this and it's been great so far. At first I ran everything, but (for various reasons) I recently hired Pillow to manage and clean our AirBnb.

I recommend being very honest in describing your listing, keep it cleaned and tidy, and make it comfortable. If you think your house might be a bit noisy (due to kids, pets, etc), just be clear about that in your listing and no one should have unmet expectations. We managed to rack up great reviews fairly quickly.

Oh, also be sure to adhere to all your local laws regarding vacation rentals. Some areas don't yet have clear rules set up yet, so do it to the best of your ability.

[getupkid]

I also recommend disclosing the fact that you have a 2-year-old and a dog. You can make it clear that they don't enter that space, but for people who are apprehensive around dogs, it helps to know.

I'm sure you've already created this, but I recommend also giving them some sort of "welcome book" with information on local restaurants, coffee shops, wifi, etc. That usually cuts down on how many questions a guest might ask that could easily be solved by providing the information in advance.

Finally, include a note that food and drink is not allowed in the bedrooms. We've found that it's easier to be strict at first then loosen up once you meet the guests and get an idea of who they are and how they will operate. We do it this way to avoid having people abuse the policy. Plus, if you include it in your house rules, then if someone ends up causing a stain or an issue related to that rule you have greater leverage to get reimbursed from Airbnb.

Good luck! I wouldn't worry so much about the 2-year-old. Every guest I've had (which has been more than 50) has been wonderful and not someone looking to "snatch" a kid.

- An airbnb host in St. Louis, Mo.

[jacquespluto]

Thanks everyone for the great responses and suggestions.  We definitely have been upfront in our listing.  Below is what we have included.

"This is a separate daylight basement unit within a family friendly home. We have a 2 year old and a dog and you will most likely hear us upstairs. We will do our best to keep noise level to a minimum and our son is usually to bed by 7:30pm. If you are looking for something completely quiet with no shared floor/ceiling, then this might not be ideal."

We also have a welcome sheet with Wi-Fi info, general rules, safety issues etc.  For out of town guests we have several Portland resource books down there as well as local hiking guides.  We will probably also include a bottle of Pinot and some light snacks to help get good reviews!

[HipGnosis]

i would include that there is a locked door between the rental and your family living space during their stay. And a better description than 'daylight basement'.

Personally, I prefer a list of recommended local attractions and options - including why/what you recommend them for.  I would also include a list of any restaurants that will deliver - with their numbers of course.

I would also be a renter at a few AB&Bs to see how others do it and experience it as renters first hand.

[LadyStache in Baja]

We do this!  Our rental is on the second floor of our house...separate entrance and everything. 

We have 4 very young kids and a dog!  It is disclosed in the description like this, "We live on site, so if you need assistance we are always in and out.  We will do our best to make your stay more awesome! 

Our four preschoolers live with us. They are not always quiet, but they are always adorable!  :)  You can expect quiet on school days from 8-2, and at bedtime from 8 pm to 7 am."

The first part, about us being on-site, turns a negative into a positive...you're right there to help if they need anything!  Not every airbnb is like that.

We've been renting for a year and a half now.  We had one bad experience, a 3 day stay that wanted to leave early and wanted a refund on her last day.  I said no, because I felt that the noise was disclosed in the description.  She left a critical review, not nasty, but critical.  In hindsight, I should've just given her the refund.

However guests that stayed after her left very nice reviews, even defending us against her review, by saying "the kids were so cute, we loved watching them play and laugh, and the noise wasn't a problem and was disclosed in the description", so that was nice.

We do provide a bowl-full of earplugs with a cute poster that says "Help yourself we want you to get a good night's sleep".

We also keep our price a bit lower than the competition.  Too low, and no one will book because they'll think it's a dump.  Too high though, and you get picky clients.  In the beginning, err on the side of too-low because then you'll get great reviews when people are impressed by the space. 

I think you'll do just fine!  Good luck!

[Miss Piggy]

We also live in a rural college town, so the market for renters may be low anyways.

I'm not so sure... since you're in a rural area, I bet it's not overflowing with hotel rooms. And parents need someplace to stay when they visit their little snowflakes. :)

[RobFIRE]

Suggestions from others to ensure listing is clear and pricing reasonable make sense. Sounds like you have realistic expectations so should fare well.

What I'd like to mention is effort/hassle versus reward. In my experience doing some small-scale eBay selling (which obviously isn't AirBnb letting but I think has some parallels) once you have your listings set up, process and routine established, most sales go smoothly and as expected, so you get a clear understanding of your ongoing costs/effort and profits and can then judge what/how much it's worth doing. However, there are a small number of timewasters/idiots out there who are potential sales and/or potential costs (sale and then refund/dispute). It's my experience that the timewasters are a small volume of (potential) sales and a large proportion of the unexpected effort, particularly stressful effort & worries. Avoid those people as much as possible by making your listing, expectations very clear up front, declining sales/rentals to people who are problematic (e.g. emails late at night with no sentences/capitalisation, not reading what you have previously replied to them, doing stupid things like asking if you have a dog when you've said so clearly in listing, people with zero previous feedback unless individually vetted, asking for special deal just for them etc.), and if you have an issue with somebody (e.g. they want to leave a day early), try to resolve it/get rid of them as quickly as possible (so agree to refund of final day after checking place left in good state) to avoid endless hassle of a dispute.

Just my opinion, but if you can manage to avoid/minimize the timewasters I think you'll get 90 or 95% of the sales and hopefully only 10% of the hassle/stress, rather than much more of it for only marginally higher profits.

[jacquespluto]

Update.. We had our first guest in and out and it went very well.  Received a nice positive message from him after he left and I asked if he would kindly add a review since we are new.  Here are my observations so far:

#1 Initial cleaning and getting ready was a little more work than we planned, but hopefully as we get better at this the process becomes more efficient.

#2 My wife was home when they checked in so she did the welcome and tour.  One thing we quickly realized is that having a checklist for this process would be helpful so we remember to point out the right things.  I found myself thinking, we should have told him about the nightlights and that there are more water bottles in the fridge, etc.  We do have a list of rules and recommendations for local dining, but some of the smaller details didn't make it on that list.

#3 I'm not sure if it even made a difference, but we found ourselves tiptoeing around and shhhh'ing our 2 year old to make sure we were extra quiet.  Probably a little overkill.  It was a little difficult not feeling like we can act normal in our own house, but I think it's all about finding the right balance.  I think we were really just trying so hard to get a positive review and not have noise be an issue even though we disclosed it.  I'm curious how this will change once we get a few positive reviews and have more stays.

#4 Guest was super clean and quiet.  It was honestly hard to tell anyone had even stayed down there.  I know they won't all be like this and it's probably the best guest we will ever have, but wow what a start.

We have 2 longer bookings of 4 nights each within the next month so we will quickly be getting some more experience under our belts.  A few things to figure out, but so far so good.  Nice to see the $ come through paypal so quick.

[Catbert]

Glad this is working out for you.

With regard to cleaning see this on-going discussion:  http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/advice-for-making-your-home-interior-easier-to-clean-and-maintain/

To see how much noise transmits, either you or your wife should spend an evening downstairs while the other acts normally upstairs.  You may find that cooking, TV watching, and child playing doesn't register much downstair.  Alternatively, you may figure out what activities to curtail as much as possible when you have guests. 

[SKL-HOU]

I also recommend disclosing the fact that you have a 2-year-old and a dog. You can make it clear that they don't enter that space, but for people who are apprehensive around dogs, it helps to know.

I'm sure you've already created this, but I recommend also giving them some sort of "welcome book" with information on local restaurants, coffee shops, wifi, etc. That usually cuts down on how many questions a guest might ask that could easily be solved by providing the information in advance.

Finally, include a note that food and drink is not allowed in the bedrooms. We've found that it's easier to be strict at first then loosen up once you meet the guests and get an idea of who they are and how they will operate. We do it this way to avoid having people abuse the policy. Plus, if you include it in your house rules, then if someone ends up causing a stain or an issue related to that rule you have greater leverage to get reimbursed from Airbnb.

Good luck! I wouldn't worry so much about the 2-year-old. Every guest I've had (which has been more than 50) has been wonderful and not someone looking to "snatch" a kid.

- An airbnb host in St. Louis, Mo.

Unrelated to OP but what part of St. Louis?