Getting Creative
AirBnB’s got a bit of a bad rep in Charlottetown over the years and I get it. Some people can’t find a place to live and the older downtown homes that had slowly become affordable rentals over the years were being bought, fixed up to be historical and quaint and then rented out for multiple times more. But we were those who benefited from the AirBnB market and we did it creatively without taking any rentals off the market. It was uncomfortable and a bit of a pain in the ass, but it helped us live for almost-free for 2 more years (as the first year we were living in the duplex and our downstairs tenant was covering most of the mortgage.)
We were those who benefited from the AirBnB market and we did it creatively, without taking any rentals off the market.
In 2016, we bought this small house on an even smaller lot on Gerald Street. It was the cutest little yellow house you ever did see. And it was totally an impulse purchase!
We saw it online on Sunday morning, reached out to our REALTOR® and she got us in on Monday. We wrote the offer while we were at the house, sitting at the kitchen table. We hadn’t spoken to our mortgage broker yet so we only assumed we could afford it.
Little Yellow on Gerald Street.
We were wanting to grow our property portfolio - our impression of this house was:
Affordable - chances are we would be fine to purchase this property with only 5% down
Not a huge property - this house would be a good rental because of that.
Downtown location - great for AirBnB
Cute, historical, quaint, small - PERFECT for AirBnB
So we got it to all come together and we became the new owners of Little Yellow.
But wait - we were looking for a house for us to live in. We didn’t want to be living in the duplex when we had kids…right? So where would we live if we were putting Little Yellow on AirBnB? Well we did move in to Little Yellow for the first year. We had to get the house set up, the heating system and electrical panel upgraded and furnish the house for an AirBnB rental.
When we moved into Little Yellow, we rented the upstairs unit of our duplex to some very lovely AVC students. The original tenant from when we purchased the duplex was still living in the basement unit and his rent was below market value.
In March 2017, we gave the downstairs tenant notice that we would be moving in to the basement unit of the duplex. We were planning to live in the basement unit while we had Little Yellow on AirBnB for May-September and then, come September, we would rent the basement unit as a furnished rental on a 9 month lease. This was a great option for a student who wanted a place during the school year and was willing to pay a bit more per month for a furnished rental on a shorter lease.
Oh yeah, and I was pregnant.
We did this for 2 summers (and 2 pregnancies). Each May, we would move in to the duplex for the summer and rent out Little Yellow on AirBnB. This creative arrangement made our properties work extra hard for us and enabled us to live rent free for 2 years. There was some extra work that went into it, beyond just moving back and forth while pregnant/with a newborn but we made it work.
And it paid off.
If you want to know more about how we made this work for us, Let’s Chat…I will go through how the numbers looked for us and we can come up with a creative plan for making your property work for you.