Building a STR - Wheelchair accessible?

Question

I have a lot in a vacation area in Vantage WA and considering building a home that's 1 level and wheelchair accessible - does anyone have knowledge or experience with this? I'm thinking it would open the door for more renters and set me apart from my competition.

Any thoughts or feedback on this would be greatly appreciated!

Sarah Kensinger · Answer

Check out Becoming rentABLE, they would have all the info you would be looking for.

Michael Baum · Answer

Hey @Becky Elder, I agree that it would be a good idea. As the population ages here in the US and abroad, more folks are needed an easier access place to stay.

We have had maybe 5 inquiries over the last couple of years that wanted to know about ease of access. Our lake house is not an ADA palce.

Now being ADA compliant and easy access are 2 different things. Building to ADA spec will cost you much more than simply building a single story home with good access.

Here are the federal guidelines for ADA compliant building - https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/design-standards/

If you want to build to ADA compliant standards, you need to look at those documents. You don't want to advertise ADA complaint unless you actually meet those standards. Simply saying great access for folks with limited mobility should be OK.

I am curious about your lot. Does it have a nice view or even access to the Columbia?

Becky Elder · Answer

Thank you all for the feedback and comments, I'll do some further research and will update you all on what we decide to do.

Andrew Steffens · Answer

I think this could be a good idea as we have a lot of access questions often as some of our places are large and cater to multigenerational families.  I am just not sure the cost supports it or not.  Most of our beachside properties are 80% occupancy and going ADA would maybe increase it 5%? Maybe 2% Or 0%?

If it were only a negligibly more I think it is great and worth it.  If it $80,000 more I think it will take you a long time to recoup that IMO

Matt Mertz · Answer

Airbnb will let you post a "step free entrance" accessibility feature but it needs to be documented with a picture.  Not sure if that affects the search algorithm but it's worth implementing if you are doing new construction.

We've been hosting 1 house for almost two years and only gotten 2-3 specific questions about wheelchair accessibility.

We've gotten an expensive guest stay once because the guest's wife needed grab bars in the bathroom so we installed those in one.

Grab bars, wheelchair accessible showers and front door are not expensive to build if you're starting from scratch.  Hard to know the ROI but it's so cheap that it's not really risky to do it.

Brooklyn McCarty · Answer

Great idea. I’d do as many handicap accessible things as you could

Matthew Masoud · Answer

That's a real nice thing for you to do.

I'm not sure the ROI is necessarily there (depending on your costs of course).

Over 36 short-term units (and 100s of reservations  we've only had one guest who needed a wheel rental. Maybe it was just an anomaly but personally, I wouldn't.

Building a STR - Wheelchair accessible?

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