All Forum Posts by: Leigh Ann Smith

@Gabe Pringle and @Jonathan Thrasher, this is what we are doing in Texas.  We have 2 tiny homes currently, with plans to add another eventually.  Our tiny homes are on wheels, so they are technically RV's.  It's working out well so far.  We are in a rural area outside of any city limits, so no zoning restrictions.

We are NOT in a desirable location in terms of being near anything that anyone would want to visit, but the houses are on our Christmas tree farm, so it's an interesting location on its own.  

Our guests can walk through the fields, and we allow them to bring dogs.  The houses sit on a pond, and we have stocked it, so starting in the spring, our guests can fish there.

Most of our guests have been young couples having a weekend getaway.  Usually, they are fascinated with tiny houses, and that's why they chose us.  We've had a few who are attending family events nearby, a few who had jobs in the area, and 2 who were catching cruises out of Galveston the next day.  We'd like to get a few more of those job ones who will stay a week!

We're currently upgrading some of the tree farm facilities to be able to host events, and we believe that we will get guests associated with the events, too.

A big consideration when planning your tiny house village is infrastructure.  What will it cost for water, septic, electricity, and roads?  We spent about $23K on all of that.

CBIZ will not cover tiny homes on wheels, but we got insurance through Proper Insurance Services, LLC. We pay about $50 per house per month.

Our one frustration has been with pricing.  We had hoped to be able to charge about $100/night, but most nights we are charging about $74 (+ $25 cleaning fee per stay).  It seems like when I raise the price, the reservations stop coming.  Likewise for having a 2-night minimum.  It just doesn't seem like we can support that yet.  We began renting our first house in late June, and the 2nd one just a few weeks ago, so it's probably too soon to tell.  We've gotten all 5-star reviews, and the guests all seem to be very happy. so hopefully we can up the prices a bit in due time.

Let me know if I can answer any other questions from our experience!

Hi @Austin Hughes, we're AirBnB  newbies in Manvel.  Search AirBnB for "Tiny House on the Christmas Tree Farm".  We made our numbers for our first month, but not sure we will for August.  However, it does seem like the reservations are coming in only a week or two ahead of time, so maybe I'm worrying for nothing.  We've purchased a second tiny house and are now working on getting it furnished and set up.  September 1st is the date we're shooting to have it ready.

Thanks for the group recommendations, @Monika Haebich and @Huy N.!

We are adding a 2nd tiny house beside our first one.  I'd like guests to have the ability to book both houses as a package.  Should I make a 3rd listing for the 2 houses together?  If so, can I sync the calendars such that a reservation of an individual house blocks the calendar of the "package" and vice-versa?

I agree with @George P., too.  Don't put it in the title, but make it the first thing in the description.  I also liked his "Make no mistake...." wording.

@Matt R. has a great idea with the word "oasis" and also "urban".   I'd go with Adjective (Cozy, charming, hip, etc.) Urban Oasis

@Joshua Hardy, one of the perks of living in the boonies is that there is no zoning!  On the flip side, there's no city water or sewer, my address does not exist according to Google maps, and the only broadband Internet available is U-Verse at 6 Mbps.

Our new tiny house has a loft bedroom, with a typically low ceiling.  So, we will put a 6-8" mattress up there.  I'm debating between a memory foam mattress or a regular one.  I found an 8" regular one on Amazon with lots of good reviews and the memory foam mattresses have good reviews, too.  A regular one would be a lot more work to get up into the loft, and it's more expensive.  Any thoughts on whether it makes a significant difference as to which of these you choose? 

@Logan Gilbert, we got vacation rental coverage through Proper Insurance Services.  We're paying $600/year for the first house.  I doubt we'll get a price break on adding the second house, but I hope so.

@Juan Diaz, I hadn't thought of looking for blogs to feature our tiny house.   Great suggestion!  You are right that location is not what we are selling, other than the "off the beaten path" aspect of it.  

Two of our guests this month traveled more than 3 hours to come and stay, so I guess we are a destination now.  I found a lady last week to do the house cleaning (I sure hope she works out long term!), and she said, "People want to come stay in Manvel??".

Another thing we're doing that seems to be a draw is allowing guests to bring pets.  So far, so good on that.  The guests that brought their pets were very pumped about getting to take them for walks out in the countryside.  And it's 100 degrees and humid out there, so that was pretty surprising to me.

We also recently stocked our pond with fish.  It will be spring before we can allow fishing, but I think that will be a draw also.

@Christian Wathne, our tiny homes are configured to use regular RV hookups.  So, we have regular toilets, and there is a small water heater under the kitchen sink.  We keep the temp set high so that it takes less of the hot water when you're taking a shower.

We have a 30 amp connector for the house.  That will work fine as long as no one tries to use the toaster oven, hot plate, and microwave at the same time the a/c is running.  We are warning our guests of that, though.

We have a mini-split inverter air conditioner/heater.  The a/c is working great, and we'll have to wait till winter to see about the heat.  Since we're in south Texas, I expect it'll do just fine.

We've just finished our first full month of renting our Tiny House on the Christmas Tree Farm through AirBnB.  The minimum number of rental nights we need for a reasonable return is 7 nights per month, and we had 11, so we are delighted!  We marketed the listing with a Facebook ad directed to fans of our farm's Facebook page and their friends. The ads resulted in over 1,000 clicks on the AirBnB listing, so we were pleased with that.

Because we're off to a good start, we bit the bullet and purchased our second tiny house on wheels this weekend.  Our first house, "Lone Star", sleeps 2, and the new one, "Bluebonnet", will sleep 4.

We have 3 RV hookups for the tiny houses, but we will probably wait a year or so before adding the third.

One goal we have is to try to increase weekly rentals, and we're considering running Google ads to try to drum up some of those.