Gameday house hacking college town

[Gregory Schwartz]

Shower thought: What if I rented my house out during home games in a college town?

My wife and I are looking to move to College Station, TX next year. Ideally we would buy a multiplex and house hack. But if we want a nicer, larger single family house we were thinking about renting out the house for home games to help lower our cost of living. Looking at Air Bnb we could get up to $1500 for a home game weekend.

Is anyone using this strategy? I'd love to hear pros/cons

[Carolyn Hodo]

Hi there, 7-year resident of Aggieland. Bryan is more friendly to AirBnb type rentals than College Station. There are several spots around now that offer park and ride to the games, so Bryan could still be good for gameday rentals. College Station has regulations as follows:

https://blog.cstx.gov/2013/08/14/whats-allowed-for...

The primary purpose for these restrictions is to maintain neighborhood integrity and ensure public safety, which are high priorities for many of our residents. Short-term rentals are limited to hotels and motels located in commercial zones. Renting out homes or single rooms – game day housing — is not permitted, unless the property owner remains on-site and operates as a registered bed and breakfast.

Bed and breakfasts (Code of Ordinances 12.6.5.C.2) are permitted in residential zones, but only under these circumstances:

• It must be part of the owner’s permanent residence.
• It must maintain a residential appearance.
• It must be the permanent residence of the proprietor.
• No more than four unrelated people can stay there overnight.

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However, a recent Texas Supreme Court ruling might result in changes; CStat is apparently reviewing their rules: https://www.kbtx.com/content/news/Texas-Supreme-Co...

Also, I know people still rent out whole condos, etc in CStat - my family stayed in one for graduation last year. So, not sure how well-enforced it is (but I wouldn't 

We were hoping to find a SFH with a garage apartment or similar when we moved earlier this year, but it was challenging. We ended up buying a house in Southside district (great for gameday), and may end up fixing up the master suite with separate entrance for AirBnB on special weekends. Besides game days, there is also graduation and parent's weekend that are good days for airbnb. I'm still not sure about expected occupancy though - this year, for example, most of the home games are not big games - most of the big SEC games seem to be away games this year, so not sure how many spots will get booked.