House Hack with Airbnb, turn flex room into bedroom?

[Thomas Bailey]

Hello!  I bought this townhome near downtown in December 2021.  I started renting out my guest bedroom last June.... ITS BEEN GREAT!



I make $1500ish on the guest bedroom.

See below for my airbnb listing.

Airbnb Link

Photo 11 & 12 are the flex room...

I have a 15' by 13' flex room / open space on the first floor... I'm stumped on what to do with it (I've tried a pool table, and even an inflatable hot tub!).  I just thought this morning... What if I convert it to a bedroom?

I could live in that new bedroom, and rent out my other suite bedroom?  

The only issue is I have no shower/bath access if both bedrooms are rented out.  I could use the bathroom in the kitchen... 

Honestly I don't think I would mind.  I have mostly 1 night stay guest, meaning I have access to a shower from 11am to 3pm... :P 

In terms of renting this out as a full time airbnb in the future... Would guest complain about this third bedroom not having access to a shower? Future guests would have to go through master bedrooms to use their showers... 

I imagine I live here for another year or two, then move out to use it as a full unit rental.

1.  Should I build a wall & door to the flex room?

2. Should I build a closet to make it count as an official room?

I do not plan on ever selling this townhome... 

Let me know your thoughts!  Thank you!

[Andrew Postell]

@Thomas Bailey will someone complain? Yes, if you run a STR for any amount of time, no matter how nice your home, someone won't give you a 5 star review. Someone will complain. It's just inevitable. So I wouldn't worry about that piece of it so much.

Maybe you could charge significantly less for the common area with the understanding that they would need to share your shower but use the kitchen bathroom.

You could also just use that common area yourself, get a gym membership and use the shower there.  I would not suggest spending capital to change the layout...at least not yet.  See if you can work with what you have in some way to make the current floorplan income producing.  Even though you plan on keeping it for a while, if you were to ever sell it might need to be changed back or modified again to resell.  So let's try to get it to work in it's current condition and see how that goes. 

Just a thought. 

[Ryan Thomson]

@Thomas Bailey the ROI on that would likely be amazing. It is very cheap to make a room a bedroom. You could also just put a curtain up in the flex room. If you can deal with it being a little more uncomfortable you will certainly make more money.

[Thomas Bailey]

Thanks for the replies!  I think my best bet here is to live in the new bedroom with no access to the showers, then rent the 2nd master bedroom upstairs. 

Girlfriend HATES the idea lol.