I have a 4 bedroom home with a private in-ground pool and I have 2 rooms upstairs listed on Airbnb. I’ve had great success over the years and I’m thinking of putting the entire house on Airbnb. The entire upstairs is good to go as-is, and only minor things would need done downstairs to get it ready. We live pretty minimally. Our plan would be to list the house, and if someone books, move all our personal things to the garage or a closet with a lock. I just want to see how the listing will perform before we decide our next move. We’d go spend a few nights in a hotel or with a friend or something. The things we’d move into storage would be things like shoes, coats, dog stuff, toiletries, etc.
Long story short, the mortgage is killing us but I don’t want to sell. I want to keep the house but move into something very cheap so that I can comfortably cover the difference between Airbnb earnings and the mortgage bill, if there is one. Basically, I want Airbnb to cover most or all of the mortgage. I won’t necessarily make a profit, but that’s okay. I’ll have a house and maybe I’ll build equity while paying down the principal balance.
Anyway, is this a bad idea? I guess the real question is, would it be strange to have certain rooms in the home locked? I’d lock the garage, the master bedroom walk-in closet (I’d have a wardrobe in the bedroom for guests to use), the kitchen pantry, and I’d have a room upstairs locked (this room is already locked and guests don’t seem to mind lol). These spaces would be/are used for storage, at least interim. So I guess really, it would be a 3 bed listing. If/when we move, of course more of the home would be available.
