Renting spare room on Airbnb when I have a housemate?

Racky_Roo

Could you rent the spare room to a Mon-Friday lodger instead? that way you'd get extra money and still have a spare room at the weekend for visitors as well as the house to yourselves. You generally find Mon-Fri lodgers will barely be at the house as they tend to just work, come home and sleep and if they work from home on Friday, will leave Thurs morning and you won't see them until Mon night

zagubov

Maybe contact local schools /Education authority and see if any staff need weekday accomodation during term time. 
You can fill the spare room with temporary guest in the summer holidays if you want.

saajan_12

delmonta said:

saajan_12 said:

Few things to consider: 
1) long term v short term - while the per night rate sounds great for AirBnb, there's a lot more work and less consistency, so taking costs and voids into account, the total for the month / year may be less.

Why not just consider a 2nd full time lodger - that way you + housemate can get comfortable with one person and then eventually less worries about questions / locking etc. 

2) Its not an all or nothing. If you're really keen on AirBnB, then you could discuss and then get one trial booking, while you're both there, to see how it goes. If both happy, then only invite more bookings while you're there, and eventually when one / both of you aren't there. 

Thanks yeah all good advice. A full time lodger would be good but is more of a commitment. With airbnb if its not working out we can always change it, so as you say a trial might be a good idea

I was thinking of it now as I have to be say for 6 weeks over various trips, and thought the extra cash would be incredibly helpful. But as everyone says, its not really ok to suddenly do that to my housemate, so we should do what you say first

thanks everyone, my housemate will be please I checked in here

Well that's the point, a couple of AirBnB guests while you're away is arguably a bigger commitment than a lodger for a few months, because 
- have to lock everything away (as no chance to meet them before they move in)
- more cleaning & extras eg linens, towels, toiletries
- more touchpoints (eg giving key at an exact time, questions about the area)
- higher expectations for common areas to look 'perfect' ie no personal clutter, bathrooms wiped down, etc 

delmonta

Niv said:

Airbnb in this scenario is not simply giving someone a place to sleep for the night, you are letting a room in an occupied house - you will be obliged to host and if you are away you are obliging your friend to host. You are a slave to your ratings so if your friend doesn't want to be involved but is the only one there your ratings could seriously suffer which may put strain on your friendship if you feel its was in any way due to his attitude etc

Some visitors do want to chat / be told about places to visit in the area so will seek you / your friend out.

Some visitors can be vey picky with certain things and not even tell you, you only find out when you get a review and a poor rating.

People are very picky on cleanliness and often will reflect it in their ratings and not say anything to you at the time. A shared house is much harder to keep clean and tidy, especially shared areas such as the bathroom etc, is your friend prepared to clean and dry it after every time he uses it so its 'guest ready'?

If you are putting your friend through this I think you must share the income from him tbh, not just think about it. You want him to buy into this otherwise it will fail, too many bad ratings and 1, people are less likely to come and 2, you get suspended from the platform anyway.

On breakfast - no, you do not have to offer breakfast, in the settings you select if breakfast is included or not. If you do decide to offer breakfast you can define what sort of breakfast (i.e. you can offer 'continental' so not a cooked breakfast etc). In the middle of Bristol this is not such a big deal so maybe start by not offering and see how it goes.

Thanks yeah all good points. I've not rented on airbnb before so I'm new to it all

It does sound like this won't really work unless I am here, in which case I think it would be ok. I actually quite like the idea of meeting new people and hosting them, and if it gets too much we can always stop. But you're right about cleaning etc, and reviews

When you say share the income, do you mean split it 50/50?

I just have so many outgoings with the house and maintenence, have been renovating it to a high standard since the start of covid, everything inside I bought. So somehow splitting it 50/50 feels a bit odd to me, but maybe it makes sense

RS2OOO

I have done something not dissimilar to what the OP is looking into.

In short, it got messy, too messy to warrant the extra small amount of income I gained from it. Friendships were broken, families ended up feuding, there was bickering between the long term lodger and the short term tenants which I constantly had to deal with from both sides.

A reliable long term lodger is way more valuable in the long run, not just financially but also from a home security aspect knowing you have someone you trust at home when you go away for lengthy periods.

I wouldn't do it again 

theoretica

How much would you get in rent a night for a permanent lodger?  That (with an adjustment for utility bills shared 3 ways rather than 2) would seem to be the value of your third room.  How much more would you get a night for short term AirBnB?  That would be the value of the short term let business, which as above would involve a significant buy in from your current lodger. 

So it you might get £10 a night for a long term lodger but £30 a night BnB after costs a fair split might be £10 to you and the other £20 split equally - so £20 and £10

delmonta

Thanks everyone, yeah from your comments and some reflection it does seem a long term lodger makes more sense. Even if I could rent out the spare room on Airbnb for half of each month (which is probably reasonable in these parts), it would still only be similar to the rent from a long term lodger. I also prefer the consistency

But we've had an eye out for a nice housemate and havent come across one! We are such old friends, it feels odd to get someone we don't know in, but may be fine. 

One of the most lucrative things would be renting the whole house if we both go away, which will be impossible with three of us. I've seen whole houses like mine for £150 to £200 per night, and be booked up a lot of the time. That is pretty amazing if you both want to go away for a month, whether its holiday or work. We are both freelance so these opportunities present themselves

JGB1955

delmonta said:

 We are such old friends, it feels odd to get someone we don't know in, but may be fine. 

That doesn't really fit in with your plan to have (maybe) 30 random people, per month, living in your house when you're not even there...

delmonta

JGB1955 said:

delmonta said:

 We are such old friends, it feels odd to get someone we don't know in, but may be fine. 

That doesn't really fit in with your plan to have (maybe) 30 random people, per month, living in your house when you're not even there...

It doesn't matter what forum you are on, there's always a bit of a passive aggressive edge!

It's different to have a stranger stay for a night or two and they are gone forever than finding a permanent person who is a good match

theoretica

What about medium term lets?  Someone who wants a room for a term or couple of months?  It would let you try out the idea without the pressure of either lots of people coming and going or finding the perfect person for a long term.