Our AirBnB Tiny House Has Its First Reservation

[Leigh Ann Smith]

My husband has a day job, and we also own and operate a choose & cut Christmas tree farm. He takes care of the trees and property in the evenings and on weekends. I do the office management. For about a year we were trying super-hard to get into SFR's, but every offer we made had other offers in competition, and we just felt that the prices were too high, and the numbers didn't work for us.

We watched the TV shows about tiny houses, and we thought they were cool. We talked about several ways to use tiny houses to achieve our real estate goals, but it was all talk until my husband saw a tiny house on wheels on Craigslist. Some guys built it who live just a few miles from us. So, we bought it for $30K. We then spent many months getting water, electric, and a septic system installed, as well as running a gravel road out to the tiny house site at our pond.

This site is less than 100 yds from our home, and we don't want long-term renters living there. So, we've decided to go with AirBnB. We spent about $20K for all of the infrastructure, and went ahead and set up RV hookups for 3 houses. I haven't totaled the numbers yet, but we probably spent about $4,000 for a mini-split a/c, appliances, mattress, bedding, kitchen stuff, decor, etc. We're all in at about $54K, and if we can rent it for $75/night, 7 nights per month ($525/month), our cash ROI should be just over 7%. That $525/month is the lowest number that gives us what we would consider to be a reasonable return. If we get more nights than that, and/or enough bookings to justify adding another tiny house, the total returns will be better.

We live in the country, outside of city limits, so we don't have any problem with ordinances restricting tiny houses. The flip side of that is that there isn't anything to do out here, and it's certainly not a vacation destination.

Our first reservation came in today for 4 nights from a guy who is working on a job nearby. I think this type of guest might be our primary market. I won't post the link here because I'm not sure of the rules on that, but if you google: Airbnb "tiny house on the christmas tree farm" , it will come up.  I decided that getting our first booking qualifies for posting a success story!

[Mindy Jensen]

Congratulations, @Leigh Ann Smith. That's an awesome story.

Now, for the marketing to continue the reservations. Don't just rely on Air BnB. Where is this first guy working? Can you contact the HR department and let them know you have a place for rent? Ditto any other company in the area that would have outside workers who need a place to stay.

Let all your neighbors know there is a Friends and Family discount available to them for over flow guests.