I’m from Kansas and just getting my feet wet with hosting. My husband and I have a small 2 bedroom rental house up the street from our house. We live on a lake but the rental is back off of the lake a bit so no lake view. We’ve had our rental house rented out long term until the past couple years when it sat empty. We had problems with the last renter having pets (ferret and cat) in the house despite our request of no pets. We waited until he got out of the military and moved away. We then put in a bamboo floor in the main part of the house and carpet in the bedrooms. We decided to start renting it by the day/week and have joined forces with a neighbor who does guided hunting and fishing trips in our area. Since we live by the lake, none of our neighbors drink the water. So that’s the first strike against us. We use bottled water at our house and provide it at the rental. The rental house has a full kitchen stocked with everything one would need, a washer and dryer, a bathroom/shower, full size bed in the bigger bedroom, a twin in the small bedroom and two futons in the living room that will sleep one adult each or a couple kids. So far we’ve only rented to hunters and fishermen who really don’t seem to mind the inconvenience of the water situation. We have Wi-Fi, and an antennae on the house for local stations. I guess I’m wondering if $100 per night is too much (it takes me about 2.5 hours to clean it for turnaround). I’m also wondering if we should list it somewhere else so we can stay busier in the off months. Thanks for any advice you can give me.
I’m a new host so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Regarding the water - is there no purification system you can set up? Even if not, if you declare the tap water issue and provide bottled water - I guess that’s ok.
Regarding the price - it really depends on the area - it’s hard to tell. I feel like $100 is low but that’s not based on anything. We do airbnb and VRBO - and we have had success with bookings on both sites.
Has the well been tested? If you have to provide drinking & cooking water, the best thing is to have a spigot dispenser for 5 gallon jugs so that you aren’t filling up our landfills with plastic that doesn’t usually get recycled.
As to pricing, you need to track what similar AirBnB and other vacation rentals in your area are charging, which means that you need to use an “anonymous” or “stealth” window for browsing Air & VRBO in order to check other rental prices, and to check how heavily booked they are.
Ignore Air’s “suggestions” (I turned them off) because they don’t know details and always try to underprice in order to get more bookings even if hosts lose money.
If your turnaround takes 2.5 hours, you need to charge a cleaning fee based on what you would have to pay a cleaner to do it when you can’t (the day will come!). I have always had a 2 day minimum stay because at my price point in my market I wasn’t going to turn a room for the profit from one night, even with a cleaning charge comparable to what neighbors charged.
The water is no big deal. Plenty of people these days won’t drink tap water, even if they are assured it is perfectly safe, which of course is ridiculous.
You can’t drink the tapwater where I live, either.
Please don’t provide individual bottled water- it’s so environmentally unsound. You could provide something like a Brita filter jug, or if you have a water delivery service for those big jugs of water that you put on a dispenser, or invest in an undersink water filter system so the kitchen tap water is drinkable.
This isn’t a reason to think you have to have a low price. No one can really tell you what is a reasonable price- you just have to check out what comparable places in your area are charging.
It’s kind of too bad you put carpeting in the bedrooms. It’s not a great choice for Airbnbs or even in general. It’s really not that clean, no matter how often it gets vacuumed, harbors allergens, and can get easily stained. A wood floor with throw rugs that can be washed would have been a better choice, but that’s water under the bridge.
Well we are guessing but anyway off the cuff, the best advice is PLAN, RESEARCH, PLAN, and only THEN Actually “DO”.
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Make sure that you are creating a great environment for your guests and have TRIED to anticipate their wants and needs. You will not get it perfect on day one but TRY. And by doing so, avoid issues and learn quickly and adapt and improve. READ A LOT OF POSTS, especially the older stuff before March 2020 (Covid). There is a ton of great stuff there. Ounce of prevention is absolutely better than a pound of cure. Don’t learn things the hard way.
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WATER. You can’t be in a position where a guest might drink tap water and get sick, even if they boiled it but maybe not long enough. Asking guests to only drink bottled water is a short-term measure but will get old fast, even if you provide the big 5 gallon jugs. A friend of ours in Indiana had NASTY water with high iron content at his last house and had to buy those big jugs at Walmart. Even boiled their tap water tasted disgusting.
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You should consider a solid long term solution. Like an RO (reverse osmosis) system with “remineralization”. The RO part makes the water totally pure and safe but it won’t have a great taste without some minerals. Fortunately, many companies sell a nice cheap combo RO-Remineral kit. You can find many choices on Amazon.
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The 2nd BR - can it fit a Full or Queen? It is good to have options for 2 couples or mom/dad + 1-2 kids. The more types of bookings you can accommodate is probably to your benefit.
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Oh … that washer dryer can be a great thing to offer or it can be a problem. Some of that depends on how long your stays might be, and how damn dirty people might get.
We’ve tested the well. Nothing horrible in it like e-coli. It has sulfur in it. I thought about getting the big water jugs you put on those dispensers. We fill water jugs at our house for our own drinking and reuse them. I will consider the big 5 gallon ones. Thanks for the tip. Other rentals in our area are going in the neighborhood of $100-$125. The closest hotel to us is 25 minutes away. We live near outdoor ATV trails and hiking/biking trails and a camping area so I’d think we’d get some business from those folks. I feel like the cleaning fee should be included in the rental stay. So do you think I should tack on $50/stay?
We should have put hardwood in the rest of the house but were in a hurry and just slapped some carpet in those rooms as well. I guess we can rip it out if it gets bad enough. $100-$125 is the going rate in our area. We have 2 other airbnb’s in our neighborhood. There is also a wedding/event center near us (2 coves down) and I’ve thought of advertising our house there but I feel like our place is more of a hunters place.
I’ve stayed in airbnb many times so I kind of know what people (like myself) like, want, and need. I’m not sure we could put an R/O system on it and get the water quality we need. We have sulfur in the water. No iron but sulfur. As I said, we are catering more to the hunting and fishing type folk. We’ve only had a few bookings and have received all good comments from the folks when they turn in the key. I know I will be needing to get more blankets and heavy type bedding when it gets cold this winter. I have 6 bookings coming up to take us through the end of January and most are staying for a week to week and a half. Most of my bookings are for 1-3 men at a time. I have had one husband and wife stay for a few days. We received a heartfelt thank you from them in the mail. Said the house was very comfortable and accommodating. The washer and dryer in the unit is really more for me. LOL. It’s handy for me to do bedding and towels right there so I don’t have to drag all of that to my house. The smaller bedroom is just very tiny and would only -maybe- accommodate a full but it would be crowded. The kitchen is full of pots/pans, dishes, utensils, mixing bowls, baking sheets, cups/glasses, casserole dishes, plus all the other items one needs…foil, baggies, trash bags. I also have a book that lays on the kitchen table with complete instructions about the house, where to find things, how to check out, local conveniences such as the mini mart, gas station, area restaurants, hardware store, ATMs.
We’ve just not even looked into the water purification system really. This house/cabin has been a long term rental for us for years. We’ve had 3-4 renters over the past few years and they’ve treated us well except for the last person. We decided to do a complete overhaul when he moved out. We put in the bamboo flooring, new cabinets, countertop and refrigerator in the kitchen, new vanity and shower surround in the bathroom and new paint and trim throughout. We got it all remodeled and our neighbor was actually the one that suggested renting it to his hunting and fishing clientele. We have two other airbnbs in our neighborhood that, to my knowledge, have never been rented yet. There is a wedding event center that has a unit onsite that rents for $220/night for 2 bedrooms and a Bed and Breakfast in our closest town (2 miles from us) that rents for a little over $100/night. I feel like our price is in line since we do have the issues we have.
Don’t worry about the water situation. Most of the water in the US is not good for drinking and most people don’t drink from the tap anymore. There are some places that the water is still good, like NY or Austin, but outside a few areas people don’t (or shouldn’t) drink the tap water.
We leave a five-gallon bottle of spring water in the hallway with a dolphin pump (link at the end) for anyone who wants to fill up a sports bottle or whatever. And then we provide a Pur pitcher in the fridge for each apartment. We spend a little extra for the filters that also catch lead because of our old New England city but you should be able to get away with the regular filter since you aren’t in an old city with lead pipes. The Pur (or Brita is another brand) pitchers are much cheaper and less trouble than bottles of water.
I lived with the best well in the universe for 17 years. Now on city water and couldn’t take the chlorine.
Researched what to to and found a company called Berkey with stainless steel containers that gets rid of everything including
The most surprising feature of the Berkey filter is its uncanny ability to remove the “rotten egg smell” in water contaminated with sulfur. The Berkey removes the sulfur particles , cleaning it into healthy drinking water.
Drawbacks, one, I think they’re a little pricey,
two, you have to pour water in the top for it to slowly drip through.
I do this for myself and guests and fill a 2 gallon glass dispenser for each one. Really think people appreciate it.
The whole plastic water bottle use drives me crazy. It is just plain wrong.
Berkeys are awesome! I don’t have one but friends do.
I don’t think they’re pricey in the long run. The filters apparently last a long time.
Initial investment is a bit pricey, depending upon the size. But the filters go on sale once in a while and you don’t have to replace them often. I’m still on the original set of filters for my Big Berkey I bought two years so. But I am filtering city water thru them and twice a year, I take them out, scrub, then prime and reuse.
I bought a small one just a few months ago. Eventually may put that in the rental and get another for me.
Yeah, I know the filters last a long time and now I can enjoy drinking water again.
@muddy
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R/O provides pure water. Everything will be gone including sulfur. There are many good systems from $140 - $200 on Amazon. So let’s say $300 fully installed. It’s easy to do yourself. And it works automatically. Nothing to refill and easy to get replacement filters when they are eventually needed.
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It is best to get a system with a tank, so there would be about 5 gallons of instantly available pure water. Also consider long-term is the operating cost is very low at $3.50 - $4 for 1000 gallons.
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The Berkey mentioned by @zillacop are good. One of our best friends has one. It’s a stainless gravity system (must be manually refilled just like a Brita pitcher). They are expensive ($350 or so) and have limited capacity. Guests would have to remember to keep topping it off or run out of clean water. Perhaps not ideal.
I got the small one, 1 1/5 gal and said to be “factory blemished” which I didn’t see one scratch. It was around $250. A bit of a hustle to make sure I can fill the container for guests. Sometimes more is needed and it’s kind of a slow process, but I’m used to it.
I had a friend out west who’s well wasn’t very deep and there was the sulfur smell. None of us drank her water.
You could plumb in an auto fill valve. My neighbor has a big hydroponic farm and uses this to automate his R/O system feeding his huge reservoir.
In regard to price - when I started I assessed my occupancy and kept going up $5/night until occupancy leveled out. I had as many reservations as I wanted and stayed at the sweet spot. However I went up a little with COVID cleaning since I don’t charge a separate cleaning fee.
You might consider working the cleaning fee into the daily rate. At first glance it will appear to the guest that they aren’t paying an “extra fee”, yet because it is added into each day, you are actually making more. So many guests hate to see any added fees. Raising my rate a little had no impact on bookings.