converting a 1-br rental to a “studio”?

[Kelly0]

I’m looking for some ideas. Our current DC rental is a 1-br apartment underneath our house. It’s worked great for Airbnb for 9 years.

Our family situation has changed: our 15-year-old will begin attending a 5-day-a-week boarding school here in DC. He needs a place to sleep on the weekends and it needs to be in the apartment we rent out. We’re debating giving him the bedroom in the apartment as “his” and similar to an “owner’s closet” that locks, we’re thinking of attempting to rent out the apartment during the week (when he’s not there) and keeping the bedroom locked.

In essence, it would reduce our rental from “a 1-br apartment” to “a studio”.

In other words, potential guests would sleep on a daybed or something similar in the living room.

Of course, this reduces our apartment’s appeal enormously, but I wonder if anyone has ever done something like this before? Is there any market for a rental like this?

Of course, we could just stop renting altogether, but it’d certainly be nice to bring in a least a little income. 😉

[Sarah977]

@Kelly0  If you are talking about a hide-a-bed, I think that would be a really bad idea, because those are never very comfortable. If you could add a Murphy bed, that would be good, but they aren't cheap. 

Which one of your listing is this?

[Laura2592]

@Kelly0 I think I'd let this go. I would never be comfortable allowing strangers to occupy a space my teenager did  even with locks. What happens of there's some emergency and this child has to stay there on a day guests are also supposed to be there? Too much risk.

Why not just rent it during breaks if you are in need of extra income? Have him clean out his belongings and leave it a 1 bedroom 

[Kelly0]

Good thoughts! We’d thought about what would happen if he needed to stay there… say he got sick at boarding school, or even if he got suspended. We have another property in Maryland and in West Virginia so I’m certain we could find a place for him to sleep.

[Sid697]

@Kelly0 I guess you can try this out for a few days and see if it works. Ideally set rules for guests and also when you take in new bookings to avoid overlaps and keep buffer time of a day before and after the weekend. You could also take only 1 guest as a rule to keep it easy and manageable. Hopefully, it should give you that extra income without too much hassles 🙂 

[Kelly0]

Yes, I think we’ll try it and see whether it works. We can also stop. 🙂

[Christine615]

That's a touch choice. With Covid are you comfortable with strangers living in the main part of the apartment and using the bathroom and sleeping on the couch during the week and your kid uses those same areas on the weekend?

I'm not sure that would be ideal for my own family. It would make sense as a two-bedroom two-bath where he could lock the master. But the studio is going to attract the wrong type of guest. And hosts have reported some guests breaking into rooms just to explore or take things.

[Kelly0]

Good input! We intend to have our housekeeper clean after our son checks back into the boarding school on Sunday night. I think we’re going to try it… and if it fails, then give up. Lol

[Sarah977]

@Kelly0  I think Christine was talking about your son being possibly exposed to Covid from the guests who had just moved out, not cleaning after your son leaves on Sunday.