Turning Your Home into a Profitable Vacation Rental

There are so many ways of making money if you know where to look and what to do with what you have. You could open a shop, an eatery, or offer a service not found anywhere else, and there’ll be people flocking your way. The one area that’s slept on by most people is the art of converting your house into a vacation rental every time you are not around. This is what inspired Airbnb in the first place. The following are ways you can turn your home into a money-making vacation spot during holidays.

Add A Boat Dock

If you live next to a lake or huge river or the ocean, then you are sitting on a gold mine. Start by setting up a big boat dock that will surely attract people to come to stay at your house for a fee and get the chance to use boats all day. Getting the right floating dock construction plans is not a hard thing; simply get the services of a qualified contractor who will convert your simple home into the most popular listing on the rental market. It would cost you a significant amount of money, but the returns will be worth it.

Get the Necessary Permits

You will be running a business, and that will mean that legally, your residential house will now be treated as a business. This will open you to some scrutiny, but you have nothing to worry about unless you work for the cartel. You will be granted special permits to turn your house into a rental with the proceeds made from it taxed like any other business. These permits don’t come for free, but they don’t cost that much either. Depending on your location, you may be granted incentives after you have operated the business for a while.

Advertise the Home

Find a good photographer who will get the best angles of the house for an online website you plan to advertise from. Studies have shown that people are more receptive to any price if the photos of the product look good. On top of the photos, write a compelling description of the house that is engaging enough to attract the attention of anyone who opens the page. If the house has some history, include it there. It is the small things like this that allow you to set the best rental prices.

You can advertise the rental by either creating your own website where you can have full control over how it is operated, or you can choose to put the house into a public listing or rental site like Airbnb, where you are the most likely to get serious offers. It all boils down to how serious you are about such a venture because once you start, there’s no looking back.

Renovate the House

The renovation doesn’t have to be large scale; you just need to do some facelift on the parts that seem to be a bit damaged. This involves adding a new paint job around the house, repurposing some rooms that you rarely use into something else like an indoor bar or a gazebo. You could also increase the size of the guest bathrooms and buy new furniture for the bedroom.

House renovations also include beefing up the security because no one wants to stay in a house that is not safe. You can add CCTV cameras all over the compound, and this will actually increase the price of the rental since people tend to never bargain once they are assured that security is robust.

Protect Your Privacy

Demarcate the house well to separate the parts you want people who rent to have access to and lock up the area of the house where all your valuables are located. You never know who you may be renting out to, and since you still live in the house, it is important to take precautions. If the house can be separated cleanly, you\ll have more flexibility in deciding what people can have access to and what is off-limits.

This also has to do with safety issues for the time where you find your guest staying in the house at the same time as you. Having the house separated like that is a form of setting the rules so that they don’t cross any boundaries.

Create an Availability Calendar

With everything ready, it is time to create a calendar that shows the times that the house is available; you don’t want to spend the whole year receiving calls of inquiry when you plan to lease the house at the end of the year only. When creating the calendar, plan it around your availability; if you plan to have a long trip, then make the house available during that time. Stipulate the number of days the house will be free to avoid dealing with guests who want to overstay.

Conclusion

Renting out your own home for a while has its own risks and drawbacks, but if done right, you could be reaping a lot every year without investing too much. If you are business-oriented, then this is a risk worth taking; if it doesn’t work, you can always console yourself with the fact that any renovations are done stay with the house, a win-win situation