1. Get your holidays paid for
Renting out your entire house can fund your family holiday somewhere else. Simple. What more needs to be said….
2. Clear out and feel cathartic
If you’re going to Airbnb you need to seriously de-clutter. The biggest stumbling block for most is the daunting task of what to do with “your stuff”. Lets face it most of us are hoarders and with kids in the mix, there’s a surplus of tat to wade through to get your house ship shape and ready.
Overwhelmed? Where do you start?
Instead of seeing this as a disqualifier before the starting line, view it as a positive – go through everything and chuck what you haven’t worn in over a year, what the kids have grown out of & tackle piled up of out-of-date paperwork. Take it slowly and sort one drawer a day. Since Airbnb’ing we’ve pared our life down to essentials and maybe just a token fraction of junk(!) It genuinely feels AMAZING! Of course, the next time we rent the house, we have a load of ‘new stuff’ to sift through again, but renting out on a semi-regular basis keeps us up to date with unwanted tat.
TIP: pack your personal stuff clearly labelled into large clear storage boxes & stack in the loft. I remove almost none of our bookcase, only my favorite kitchen utensils and keep the kids’s non-favourite toys/games available for guests in a toy box.
3. Pay off your mortgage
4. Airbnb rates are lower than Agent’s fees
5. Airbnb is a doddle to use
Preparing for Airbnb guests as well as getting your family ready for the off, can take a lot of organizing. PLAN WELL AHEAD & start your de-clutter well in advance. We then blank out then entire 7 days before guests arrive (and you depart) for packing our holiday kit and cleaning the property.
Certainly renting out the family home isn’t for the faint hearted. But for those with the wanderlust and a family in tow, it could be, as with us, a brilliant way to see the world without breaking the bank.