I own my home and I live alone so, I have extra space. I would like to know what are the best options to make a profit off of my own home. What are the best roommate sites to use if I choose that route?
Hello - As an experiment, we opened up our primary residence to guests via AirBnB. We chose to just host on the weekends and went to see family or on an adventure as a family while we hosted. It was a great way to offset our mortgage. We had a great experience with AirBnB and got some family adventures out of the deal as a bonus!
Hello - As an experiment, we opened up our primary residence to guests via AirBnB. We chose to just host on the weekends and went to see family or on an adventure as a family while we hosted. It was a great way to offset our mortgage. We had a great experience with AirBnB and got some family adventures out of the deal as a bonus!
I second going the AirBnB route, especially if you can configure the property to give the AirBnB it's own entrance. For example, a typical split level has a family room with a sliding glass door and bath downstairs. Add a bed, microwave and mini fridge to the family room, and you have a "whole space" listing. Put in a non load bearing wall with a locking door at the base of the stairs to separate the two spaces. Your guests get privacy and you get extra income.
After your guest books, you text them a photo of the door they are to use to access the AirBnB. Just be sure to clearly explain the arrangement in your listing.
You state that your house is in a gated community, which probably means there are CC&R's and HOA that may address the use of the house, that's the first thing you need to determine.
You can definitely try Airbnb but you will spend a bit of time turning the rooms (if you want to be top rated, it's important that not a hair in sight can be seen--I'm a Superhost myself and do it out of our extra bedrooms).
If that's not up your ally you may just want to find a couple of roommates.
Also don't forget to use the @ symbol to tag people or we may not know you replied :)
I will second (or third or fourth) the Airbnb idea. It's a non-committal way to make some extra money but retain the flexibility should you want that space back. I would even push back a little on the location requirement. We just bought a house with a carriage house in Colorado Springs and the short-term rentals in both units are killing it. We're maybe a mile from downtown, but I don't think that type of location is a requirement at all. In the Airbnb classes we teach in the Denver area, we hear all the time about someone who has a spare bedroom in a regular neighborhood near nothing at all ... and they make enough over a year's time on Airbnb to save up and buy a property.
The one caveat, as @Karen Margrave noted, is that if you have an HOA they likely have some sort of rules in their declaration or other documents prohibiting short-term rentals like Airbnb (or VRBO). That said, because this is your primary residence and presumably you do not have to front a lot of costs to furnish this room, it seems like a low-risk situation. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.