We Rented Out Our Home for 5 Weekends This Summer And Here's How It Went (and What we Earned)
THE FARMHOUSE This summer, we rented out our home for 5 weekend stays (plus one 6-day stay) on Airbnb and Homeaway. I shared why we were doing that here and our first experience with HomeAway here (and some tips for you to rent your own home out here), but I wanted to share a recap now that we're wrapping up our summer rentals. Read on for pros and cons from our experience.
PROS
Earnings
Probably the best part about renting out our home for short stays are the earnings. This summer, we took home just shy of $6,000 at the Farmhouse and have another $2,500 in bookings coming our way later in the Fall. That's $8,500 in total! I like to call these funds 'fun money' since it's not part of our monthly budgeting, and we plan to use this haul for a family adventure in Europe later this year. And while we're away, we'll be booking more stays at the Farmhouse to subsidize even more travel or reno projects or paying down our mortgage or saving for college or...well you get the point. It's a winning cycle!
Clean House
While the money is great, there's nothing like walking into your insanely clean home after it's been rented out for the weekend. Ahhhhhh. A clean home is good for the soul. Even if it takes our kids approximately 30 minutes to have stuff everywhere, the homecoming is worth it's weight in gold!
It got us Out
I'm definitely a homebody (although my husband is much less so) and it's easy for me to say 'let's just stay home this weekend'. But renting out our home ensured that I would plan camping trips and family visits throughout the summer. While this summer ended up being a little busier than I would have liked, none of us regretted the extra time spent with family and friends while camping, exploring, and making memories.
Sharing with Others
In a world that can often feel isolated, it was nice to share our home with others. Many of our guests left us notes detailing what they loved about our home and their stay. And it was immensely satisfying to read about our home through other people's memorable experiences. Sharing can just feel good, you know?
CONS
Scheduling
My biggest con to renting out our primary residence was scheduling. With our Seattle Airbnb's in full swing this summer, the extra bookings at our Farmhouse had my head swimming with the buzz of it all. There was always a house to clean, a message to send, and a special request to coordinate. We'll be making some adjustments to our rental work load in the future (in fact, we're gearing up to sell one of our rentals right now!), but not at the Farmhouse. We plan to continue renting out our Farmhouse a bit every year, at least for the forceable future (you can read why that is here).
Cleaning
While coming home to a clean home is one of my biggest PROs for renting out our primary residence, it's also one of the biggest CONs. Our home is 2800sf and takes a looong time to tiddy and clean. The first time it took us forever and every time after that it's taken us a little less time, but still forever. Quite honestly, we would never clean that extensively just for ourselves.
Sources
Room sources available here
Similar posts
3 Reasons to rent out your home for a weekend // How to prepare your home for a weekend rental // Our first experience using HomeAway