All Forum Posts by: Leigh Ann Smith

@Lesli Watson, we purchased them from SD Tiny Homes in Alvin.  It is a side business for them, and I'm not sure that they are actively constructing them right now.  Their contact info is on the linked Facebook page.  Our 3rd tiny house is a pre-fab cabin, like the sheds you see being sold everywhere.  It's all finished on the inside since it's used.  I just got the first plumbing bid today for adding a shower & kitchen sink and connecting to water and septic.  It was $13K.  Ugh.

Hi @Lesli Watson , we are not far from you, just south of Houston in Manvel. We have 2 tiny houses that we’re renting on AirBnB and we’ve just purchased a third.

#1 recommendation is to check your city/county building codes to see if a tiny house would qualify as a residence.  Then you have to consider utilities. Do you have access to City water and sewer? If so, that’s a big plus, but you’ll have to pay the city something to tie in each unit.

We spent about $100K for 2 tiny houses, furnishings, a/c, roads, electric, and septic. (The tiny houses were $30K and $34K)  

Last year's gross revenue was about $20K with expenses of about $8,000. That includes a housekeeper to clean between guests, but I do all of the laundry. 😝 So, 12% ROI. We're happy with that.

We got a good deal on the 3rd house. ($18K). By the time we get it hooked up and make some modifications, we expect to be all in for about $32K.

We’ve opened a new wedding venue and plan to use the new house (about 400 sq. ft.) as the bridal cottage, but we’ll AirBnB it when there are no weddings.

@John Underwood , I just went in and edited my booking settings to add the pet fee and tell them that they'd receive a payment request for that when booking is complete.  Woot!

@Krishna Chava , we started out allowing 1-day stays, too.  You're right; it's a lot of work.  I found that I could make a 2-day minimum and lower the rate a bit to bring in more of those 2-day renters.  Another thing I do is to make Tuesday & Wednesday much lower.  That attracts people who are looking for 1-week or longer stays.  We'd often be unoccupied mid-week, so it's a big plus for us to have that low rate.  

@Mark S. , I think Facebook ads are a bargain.  I'm new to Instagram ads, so the jury is still out on that. These are my recent results for an ad I placed for our event venue.  "People reached" are people who viewed the ad.  I got quite a few inquiries while the ad was running, so it did its job.

@John Underwood , how do you charge pet fees with AirBnB?

@Luka Milicevic , one challenge I've found with monetizing is that AirBnB does not have a way to add extra fees, other than the cleaning fee and charging for additional guests.  So, you'd have to arrange payment for those items separately, which would create additional work for you.

I'd like to charge a pet fee, but there is no way to do that with AirBnB.  It takes the cleaning lady a full hour longer to clean if a dog has been in the place.  She's a perfectionist and likes to get every single dog hair (which is amazing for us!), but it's not really fair to her to pay her the same amount.  I'm considering asking guests with pets to leave a $10 cash pet fee on the counter and explain that it's for the cleaning lady.

Because our properties are tiny houses, and their replacement value is relatively low, we've decided not to carry windstorm insurance.  Insurance is always a waste of money when you don't end up using it, but very valuable if you do need to use it.    You'll need to decide whether you can absorb the loss if you have significant windstorm damage.

Also, check out the windstorm deductible.  We have Proper Insurance, and the windstorm deductible is 5% (subject to a minimum of $25,000!).

Nevertheless, @Eric A. is correct that your mortgage company will require it if you have a loan on the property.

If it makes you feel any better, many (maybe most) of the other vacation rentals in your area also will be paying for windstorm insurance.  It's part of the cost of doing business in a hurricane-prone area.  There is no getting around it unless you decide to just take on the risk of being uninsured.

Hi @David G., we have 2 tiny houses in a rural area south of Houston that we rent on AirBnB .  It seems that the issues with land, sewage, etc. would be very specific to your location.  Tiny houses on wheels usually qualify as RV's, so that simplifies things regarding permits and sometimes whether they're allowed to even be there.  Some municipalities have minimum square foot requirements for housing, and tiny houses don't qualify.

This is a little detail, but one problem  we've had is that tiny houses have tiny water heaters.  I tell the guests that "speedy showers are a necessity".  I wonder if the note in our listing about limited hot water discourages some guests from booking, particularly those who'll be staying longer than a couple of days.  

This winter, we had a hard freeze, which pretty much never happens here.  Since the tiny houses are up on trailers, it was hard to adequately protect the pipes, and they did freeze.  We also had difficulty getting the tiny houses properly connected to the septic system, and that was a headache.  So, that's just normal issues that you have with rental properties, but the trailer thing does add another dimension to it.

When we decided to add the tiny houses to our Christmas tree farm, we had to put in a road and a septic system and run electricity and water out to the location.  It was expensive, but we put in connections for 3 houses.  We currently have 2 houses but hope to add a third eventually.  We stay booked most weekends, with some longer stays.  It's rare that anyone stays longer than 2 weeks.

Good luck on your venture!

I don't have any problem at all with them rolling the fee over to the host (as long as they don't also increase the fee!).  Right now, the traveler is going to pay the total of the host's rate + the VRBO fee.  But when they look at the property before booking, they only see the host's rate.  Then they go to book, and that big ol' fee gets tacked on there.  I suspect that's very frustrating for lots of travelers and sends them back to searching again.  

If my property is going to be worth $100/night to a traveler, it doesn't matter whether I charge $75 and VRBO collects an additional $25 from him, or I charge the traveler $100 and then VRBO deducts the $25 fee from my payout.  Either way, I get $75.