Joshua Tree House Hack

[Colton Aaro]

Hello! My girlfriend and I are in the process of looking for a property to house hack in the Joshua Tree area so I thought this would be a good time to make my first post on here. We are currently analyzing a property that is actually in Twentynine Palms and think there is potential to rent out a portion of the house while we live in the main part. It appears to be a garage conversion and it has its own separate entrance and full bathroom. The only things it would really need are a kitchenette and to block off one doorway into the rest of the house. Our main question is regarding the permitting that would be needed in order to do this, if any, and estimates on how long this process might take. Also, we plan to rent it out on Airbnb and to rent out the full property on Airbnb once we have lived there for at least a year. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! 

[Bruce Woodruff]

Check with the local municipality about permits needed or maybe you can do it without. You may be ok. Remember the old contractor saying - "better to ask forgiveness than permission". I don't know anyone doing STRs that has an STR permit. Just my .02....

Re the kitchen....don't feel like you have to do a full kitchen right out of the gate. Our neighbor has a hugely successful and long running cabin 2BR/1BA, and just has a small apartment size fridge, little microwave, toaster oven and a hotplate thingy. No one cares. Of course he fully discloses the lack of a 'proper' kitchen in his listing. Most STR guests eat out in my experience.