The Story of the Farm

Now that we’re in the middle of our third year as landlords of a short-term property rental, I wanted to have an open discussion about the advantages and pitfalls of renting a property out on short-term rental sites such as AirBnB.

Let me preface this post by saying that we rent The Canyon Estate on AirBnB and have been thrilled with both AirBnB the company, and the guests we’ve had at the home. For us, it has been a great experience. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that renting a home as a short-term rental instead of to a more traditional, long-term tenant, is a ripe with its fair share of challenges.

Since I just quit reading when things start with bad news, let me begin with the good stuff.

Pros

Financial impact: There’s no denying this one. Even with all of the cleaning costs, startup costs, utilities costs, and repairs, the financial advantage of running an AirBnb (or similar service) drastically exceeds that of a long-term rental. We live in a high tourism area where we’re fortunate to have people traveling to our town year round, looking for a place to stay. For us the financial impact of a short-term rental has been one of the deciding factors in why we’re choosing to go this route. We have a home in a good location of town, walking distance to shops and restaurants, and close to outdoor activities. This has made all the difference in making it a successful AirBnB for us, while our properties in other locations (the Duplex, for example) most likely would not have been as profitable.

Home maintenance: When someone is moving in and out of your home on a daily basis, there isn’t a lot of time to sit around and wait for problems to fix themselves. Since it’s been listed as a short-term rental, The Canyon Estate has been in the best condition it’s ever been. We’re not able to get away with letting repairs go un-fixed. I absolutely love this aspect of an AirBnB. It relieves a lot of stress knowing that our home is in a good condition at all times. Not that we have any plans to do so, but I like knowing that if we ever needed to sell the house in a short time frame (medical reasons, family reasons, etc.), we could do so without much trouble or preparation. We could even market it as an investment property now that we have multiple years of history to show!

Ability to meet wonderful people: This is a bit of a softball, but it’s been fun to get to meet people from around the world. My mom lives next door and rents out a room in her house out on AirBnB, so she’s been able to meet people at an even deeper level (for us it’s typically passing by around check-in, or dropping off additional towels, soap, etc.). Regardless, it’s rewarding to know that people from all over are enjoying your home and the fruits of your hard work.

Flexibility to use our home when we want to (holidays, etc.) or to stop when we want: Even more than the financial impact, this has been the key factor for us in deciding to AirBnB our home. Because of the season of life we’re in, it’s been a huge blessing to be able to use the Canyon Estate for family and friends in need of a place to stay during transition times. When extra family is here for the holidays, we’re able to block off Canyon availability and put them up in the house. And because it’s already set up as a rental, there is very little prep work to be done, which is another stress reliever with kiddos running around. Additionally, Colton and I are always in the middle of pretty extensive renovations at the farm. At any moment we could be without water for days, without a roof over our heads (literally. It’s about to happen) or without windows in our bedroom. It’s been nice to not feel rushed to complete renovation projects just so that we can have the essentials. Whenever we’re ready to tackle another project, we know we’re able to move into Canyon for a few days or weeks to get us by. I’m fully aware of how much of a luxury this is.

Cons

Finishing touches are necessary and can be expensive (high start up costs): I certainly underestimated the expense of initially setting up a home as short-term rental. I figured I had enough to outfit a house and then some, but I really didn’t. Finishing touches make all the difference in whether or not a guest will book your home. So things like good linens, extra comforters, nice towels, and good cutlery go a very long way. And spoiler, my own home is not set up with the nicest of any of these things. I certainly did not have The Canyon Estate adequately prepped when our first guests arrived to our house in May of 2016. However over time, and with the help of gracious guests, we’ve slowly made the house into (what I hope is) a nice and calming place to stay. It’s cost a significant amount of money, but we’ve done it over time, and so far the return has been worth it.

Turnover is tiring and burnout is real: This should be written in all caps and extra bold lettering. People, people of the Internet, you should know that managing an AirBnB rental is a lot.of.work. I cannot emphasize this enough. It’s the first thing I tell people when they ask about what it’s like running a short-term rental. Managing overnight guests is a full time job. This has been problematic for us, because Colton and I both have actual full time jobs! Know going into this that you’ll need to constantly send emails and texts to communicate with the guests you have and the guests you will have and the guests you just had who forgot their phone charger plugged into the wall. And your current guests will text you and call you at random times of the day and night to ask if there is extra toilet paper or if the sushi place down the street also serves ramen. These are all real things that will happen to you. You will also need to be available if they cannot find the wifi password that is written in your welcome emails or on the notes you posted by their bed and on the coffee table. Please know that I do not write these things to sound ungrateful or annoyed, I say them because I myself underestimated the constant communication that is required when managing a short-term rental. Also, if you’re cleaning your rentals yourself, be prepared for physical exhaustion like no other. I acknowledge that this was only amplified because I would oftentimes attempt to clean while parenting a running one year old, but regardless, it didn’t take long before I burned myself out.

This year, I was so burnt out at the end of the summer season that I closed our availability off for six whole months. Six months!! It doesn’t take a real estate guru to tell you this was a poor choice financially. But at the end of the busy summer season I was just so tired of cleaning and managing guests that I needed a few months off. I’ve learned a lot from the past few years on AirBnB. And delegating cleaning and communication so that I don’t burn out and so that I can give a better experience to our guests is one thing I’m looking forward to doing more of this upcoming year.

Complaints can be personal and hard to brush off: You’re probably better at this than I am, at least for your sake I hope you are, but I take complaints and criticism personally. So when we receive a review noting the house was fine but the beds were terrible, or the beds were great but the neighbors were noisy, I assume that this is an attack on me personally and I that I absolutely, positively, am most definitely a horrible person. This is something that takes practice for me, but I’m learning to use reviews and comments as motivation to make a better, more welcoming space for our guests. It’s true that some people have bad days and leave spiteful comments just for the sake of being mean, but I’ve found these to be few and far between. The majority of feedback we get can and should be used to create a better home for our future guests, and ensure we’re able to continue providing a good and profitable experience for years to come.  

Is this helpful? Does anything on this list seem surprising? My hope in writing this is to be open and transparent about the advantages and disadvantages in renting a property for short-term guests. It is so completely different from our long-term rentals that we don’t even consider it to be same type of investment. We love both property types, but we’ve found that some homes, because of style, location, and set up, are better suited as AirBnB’s than others. Likewise, some properties are just begging to be long-term, stable and steady rentals.

Guess what? We’ve had such a positive experience with the Canyon Estate AirBnB that we’re planning to…drumroll please!!...open up a guesthouse on the farm this summer! We could not be more excited about this project. I’ve dreamed of turning one of the outbuildings on the farm into a guesthouse from the minute I first walked through the home last winter. We’re still in the preliminary design phase, and I won’t let Colton work on the construction until the Lofts are out of roughs (framing, drywall, etc. is done). But we’re jumping at the bit to get started. Stay tuned for design plans and timelines in the coming weeks!