Yes, the construction is done,and it is beautiful. Our guests have raved over it. The color of the hallway wasn’t what I had pictured, at all, but many guests say it’s so calm and peaceful, so, while it’s not my preference, it works. The new bedroom colors - brown walls with black furniture, and a black-brown-white duvet cover, looks great. We are so happy with it. My builder did more than we asked and charged less than we feared.
It’s not a separate entrance, but there is now a solid, locking door, separating our spaces. It is completely fabulous for our family. We can go downstairs into our office/playroom/storage part of the home, where our extra refrigerator is, with complete ease, not feeling so awkward about walking into (really just past) the guests space. It does feel odd as we were so much more closely associated with the guests before; it feels different. We miss that bit, but, it’s still way better.
Sadly - UGH - the coronation - what a disaster. Not a nibble for some time. Hotel prices are falling everywhere, and the average cost of an airbnb listing, but hosts still seem to not be paying attention to the market. Just as on the following Wednesday morning when the hotels were all over $1,000 and many listings were sleepily at regular January prices, now the market is flooded with new listings for this one event and they are still high-priced. There are only 243 listings (including non IB) with 2 bedrooms under $1,000, only NINETEEN under $400, including mine (this is inside-the-beltway, 4 guests). I’m at $390 with a minimum of 3 nights. While you can still pay $1,000 a night for some hotel rooms in town, there are many hotel rooms available right in town for $450-600. Yet the huge majority of airbnb listings are over $700.
My neighbor, with much less space than mine, only 1 bedroom, just opened up those nights about 2 weeks ago, and her husband wanted the price to be over $1,000. I told her what my research was showing but he still has that price. Who will pay over a $1,000 for a tiny 1 bedroom basement apartment in the suburbs? I will be happy if they get it, but they don’t seem to be researching on their own, and they aren’t even listening to what someone is telling them.
It appears that I just missed my chance. I did have the dates open all along but my price must have always been to high for the market, though I have been watching prices from the beginning. I started at over $1,000 and have been lowering lowering lowering.
I am now torn between lowering it again just to get it booked and feeling like why should I be in the bottom of the pile price wise, when I have been given such high ratings? We hoped that family would be sitting around at Christmas and say “hey, why don’t we go? Let’s check on airbnb…tap tap tap tap Hey! Look at this nice place, 2 bedrooms, and they serve breakfast! Book it!”. But no such luck.
Thanks so much for asking, and thanks for ‘listening’. I’ve been trying to explain to family or friends the stress and disappointment but just get blank looks in return. Well, meanwhile I had a lovely group of 3 people from Singapore who just left me the nicest review ever. Two more reviews and I reach 100 - feels like a nice milestone to me. Also, the family with the screaming 2 yo that I reviewed honestly never responded at all. While I find certain aspects of hosting pretty stressful I really do enjoy it. I need to focus on those positives and just move on.
And that posting that a lot of this was discussed on, which then was branched off for the lively political discussion, has disappeared. I don’t know how to find it; do you?