Entire house or private rooms- What’s more profitable

[Lise1051]

Hello,

I’m a new host 🙂

My place is a two-bedroom unit, with one bathroom, full kitchen, laundry, living room, and private entrance. Only one reserved parking spot, free street parking. Located in the city (high walkability).

I’ve  been hosting the entire place but,  99% of my guests are a single person or a couple and only occupy one bedroom. The other bedroom is being unoccupied and “wasted”. 

Shall I change my listing from “entire place” to “two private bedrooms in a shared home” and rent each bedroom separately? What are the pros and cons in your experience? Any recommendations?

Thanks! 🙂

Lise (Lizzie)

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Lise1051 renting rooms to different people without the host onsite is very high risk. Have you looked at Airbnb as a guest to see what sort of revenue a private room commands compared to a 2 room place? There may be little advantage to private rooms.

[Huma0]

@Lise1051 

I agree with @Mike-And-Jane0 . If you are not a live in host, there are so many things that could go wrong in that scenario. Think about cleaning issues, noise disturbance, security concerns. You would be trusting one set of guests not to upset the others and, not being there, it might sometimes be difficult to tell what actually happened. Are you ready to compensate a guest, for example, if they claim the other guest broke or stole something from them?

This wasn't a hosting experience, but when I first started renting rooms in my house, I was away for the first month. During that time, someone left the front door open and one lodger's bike was stolen. He blamed it on another lodger and demanded they pay for it. The other lodger was furious and refused. I had to do a bit of investigation and, it turned out that the guy whose bike was stolen was actually the last to come home so he was the one who left the door open.

At the same time, there was one couple who let a room for one month and then my friend was moving it. They demanded that the friend pay them the deposit back, even though of course, it had nothing to do with her. 

More drama...

I have to wonder also, if you are getting mostly bookings from people who only need a one bedroom place, perhaps yours is too cheap. Have you looked at the prices of similar listings in your area? If it's not too cheap, then there's no problem really. You are getting the price of a two-bed, with less cleaning, laundry and wear and tear than if both bedrooms were occupied.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Lise1051 another thought. You could have 2 listings - a 1 bed and a 2 bed and lock the 2nd bedroom if the 1 bed books. This allows a competitive 1 bed price and gets you full value where 2 beds are used.

[Lise1051]

Thank you @Mike-And-Jane0  and @Huma0 for your feedback! 🙂