No: this doesn’t involve some questionable game of chance in a place of ill-repute. Though, I wouldn’t say it is a risk-free proposition, or that it is for everyone. However, it’s worked out really well for us!

We are entering into our 3rd summer of renting out our house as a Vacation Rental on VRBO.com. Yep. Other people pay us to stay at our house, while we vacation (typically at Grace’s parents’ place on Hood Canal, though we’ve vacationed to Los Angeles, Whidbey Island, Las Vegas, and Cincinnati courtesy of this gig).

With the struggling economy, people are looking for more economical ways of travelling. So a 4 bedroom house for $300/night, where you can cook your own meals and fit 4-10 people, sure beats staying in multiple hotel rooms. Plus, we have a 60″ TV with cable and DVD player, a kids’ playground in the backyard, and fully stocked kitchen. So it’s a lot more comfortable and enjoyable to hang out in than a hotel room. And it’s perfect for us, because I can work remotely, and it’s covered 50-100% of our mortgage the last 2 years.

Here’s how it works:

• We rent it to people coming to the area for weddings, vacations, family reunions, etc. They pay ~$2,000/week for the house + refundable security deposit
• We clean up our house and leave it comfortable for the rentors. This has basically become Grace’s job, and she does an amazing job of leaving the house clean and inviting. She’ll leave fresh flowers and sparkling cider or things like that as a finishing touch, and people seem to love that stuff.
• We go somewhere else during their stay. (Note, if you stay with friends or family you can keep costs low, but make sure to do something nice for them to let them know how much you appreciate their hospitality… take them out to a nice meal or buy them a nice bottle of wine)

Reasons to not do this:

• You don’t own a home
• Your house is your castle, and you want to keep it that way. Or you can’t stomach the idea of other people sleeping in your bed
• You work a 9-5 with little or no vacation time, so there is little to no flexibility
• You are so tied into your community that leaving for a week or 2 at a time would be counterproductive
• You rent out part of your house to someone who wouldn’t be able to be flexibly (I actually think about this a lot, because we’d like to have someone move in with us, but we make enough from VRBO, that we would need a roommate who can be flexible in the summers)
• You’re afraid someone might break your stuff (Solution: Don’t keep nice stuff out in the open… we lock the garage off, and keep valuables in a safe deposit box at the bank. But to be honest, we have had very little trouble with broken stuff. People want their deposit back, so they tend to take care of your home)

Reasons to do this:

• Work towards your home becoming less of a Liability and more of an Asset
• If you just did this 2 weeks a summer, and planned your family vacation around it, you could easily pay for your entire vacation and still put away a couple thousand dollars. And even if you don’t go somewhere fancy, when you know that you’re making money on the proposition, you can feel free to eat out a little more or enjoy something fun to reward yourself for the hard work of getting your house ready for VRBO guests.
• Challenge your own faith that THIS is not your home (it’s God’s home, and Heaven is your true home)

Why I’m telling you this:

We heard about this from a friend about 4 or 5 years ago. They vacation the entire summer, renting their small house out on VRBO, and cover their entire year’s worth of mortgage payments! At first I thought, that’s cool, but I could never do that. But then Grace and I decided to give it a try, and now we’re hooked. And I’m not the only one… I have preached the gospel of VRBO to several dozen people and now I know at least 8 people who have tried this in 5 different cities, all with success stories. Some people stay with family, others rent out just 1 floor of their house, others travel around the country in their RV, and others use it a way to pay for glamorous vacations they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. So I thought I’d throw it out there to other people who might be looking for creative ways to get some extra income out of their house.

And if moving out several times in the summer does not sound like you, I will be writing a blogpost in the near future about why I want someone to move in with us in the near future.