I haven’t paid rent or a mortgage payment out of my own pocket in almost eight years. You see, I decided to focus on improving my financial situation and part of that process was getting creative with housing. Today, I’ll tell you my story and hope to inspire you to get creative in your own way with how you approach housing. 

First, let me say that this is not for people who like to live life in a perfect little box. Not everything about every situation I mention will seem comfortable or easy. For me, it has been worth the sacrifices in this part of my life, so that I can enjoy other areas of my life (like travel, relationships, and eating good food) more fully, while working to secure financial independence for my future. 

The Roommate Option

When I purchased my first home, I paid $195,000 and had a monthly payment of around $1400 per month, with an additional $400 in utilities and pool care. The house had three bedrooms, and I knew when I purchased it that I would need to get a roommate to keep my costs within what I could afford. I rented out one of the bedrooms for around $750 per month, which was great and meant that I got to build equity in a house while keeping my own costs at around $1,000 per month. 

Renting a Room on Airbnb

Then I learned about Airbnb and thought I would give it a try. I had another bedroom that was in the house and was very small. I didn’t think it would be much fun for anyone to live in that small room all the time, but for Airbnb, it could be the perfect spot for someone. Because my roommate would have to share a bathroom with anyone who stayed in the Airbnb, I offered her $25 off for every week that the Airbnb was booked, so that the situation would also be a benefit to her. 

I priced the room at around $35 per night with a $10 cleaning fee, as well as discounts for longer stays. I knew from looking at other rooms available in the area that my price was just below what others were charging, and my house had a beautiful backyard with a pool and a dock overlooking a canal. Well, this plan worked out really well. I was booked pretty solidly for the entire time that I had the room listed. 

Pros of Renting Rooms on Airbnb

Here are the things that I really liked about renting a room on Airbnb:

Flexibility // If I wanted to block off any dates because I needed a break or had a friend coming into town, I could always have the room available if necessary.

More money // Every month I brought in more money from this small bedroom rental on Airbnb than I did from my roommate who rented a bigger room.

Meet Lifelong Friends // One of the things I wasn’t expecting was that I would end up having so much fun with my guests. If you love to travel and enjoy cultural experiences, then this is a great option if you have to be home most of the time. I hosted people from all over the world and I still stay in touch with several of them. I met a wonderful friend from Germany, who I’ve met up with several times since that first time we met. I also made a great friend from India and another friend from China. Even though not every visit resulted in lifelong friendships, it was still really cool to host people from places like Scotland, Portugal, Mexico, and even more that I don’t remember. 

Cons of Renting Rooms on Airbnb

You Need to Be Around // I work from home so this one was pretty easy for me. I’m sure there are ways that you can arrange room rentals if you won’t be there, but in general, you probably want to be there when the guests arrive. You probably also want to manage the turnovers, which is pretty easy with just a single room and bathroom.

You Need to Keep Your House Clean // This really isn’t that much of a negative, but if you aren’t a clean person, you’ll need to figure that out. You can’t have a bedroom clean for a guest, but have a messy kitchen or living room.

Not All Guests are Great // I would be lying if I told you that every experience I had was great. When it came to people renting rooms, there were never any dangerous or completely horrible situations, but there were definitely a few inconveniences on occasion. Here are a few examples:

• I had a guy from Canada book the room for over a month. He listed that it was only him coming, but two days before he came, he said he was bringing his wife for the first few days (which was fine … I allowed couples). When his wife showed up, my roommate greeted them, and ended up calling me to come home as soon as possible. The woman had decided that my home wasn’t good enough for them, and she let me know it. She ended up changing her mind and we got to know each other, but she had strong opinions about my house and constantly told me how much bigger and better her house in Canada was than mine. Awkward.
• Another time, a guy came from another country to try to surprise a lover that he had met on a previous trip. He asked if he could bring that person to my house, but the thing was, he didn’t know this person well at all. As it turns out, the rekindling didn’t go so well, and I ended up kind of taking care of him through much of his trip, which was totally fine. It was just a bit uncomfortable at times.
• Lastly, there was an older man that came to stay for a few days from somewhere in the northern US. He and his girlfriend also ran an Airbnb. I spent an hour getting to know him when he first arrived and he seemed pretty nice. I found it strange that he went on about how I don’t have enough rules for my Airbnb (who in the world wants more rules), but I guess that’s how he felt since he runs his Airbnb with a ton of strict rules. Well, he ended up leaving me a not-so-great review. And reviews are one of the hardest things about Airbnb. It’s impossible not to take them personally. I couldn’t believe that someone I had spent so much time with would be so rude in his review. No matter how long I’ve run Airbnb locations, I’ll never get used to this, but this one definitely seemed more personal because of the time we spent together.

Renting Your Whole House on Airbnb/VRBO

Renting the house out meant that I made at least $3,000 per month. I started by renting it for $99 per night, but that was just to get my first reviews. I moved the price up slowly to $119 per night and eventually $139 per night. I kept my prices just below competitors and was booked around 95% of the time. 

Of course, this wasn’t as easy as renting out the bedroom. I was going to be traveling, so I had to get a lot of things set up. It took a couple of months of hard work, but it really paid off. Here are some of the things I did to prepare: 

• I cleared the house of personal items, like photographs. 
• I changed up some of the furniture and made sure to have things like mirrors in every room. I really thought about what items would be best for guests.
• I arranged for regular lawn and pool care. 
• I hired a cleaning company, who would also handle the laundry. 
• I hired a property manager, paying her $50 for each turnover she had to show up for. Her job was to make sure that the cleaning had been done properly, to check the pool, finish up any laundry, and to check off each item on a list that I had created in Asana. This way, I always knew when everything was complete. She would also leave a thank you card and gift basket for every guest. 
• I had two different friends in town who served as backup property managers in case of an emergency. 
• I put a WIFI controlled air conditioning controller in. This way, when guests weren’t there (if there was a day or two without a booking) I could make sure the AC wasn’t set crazy low.
• I put in a code enabled doorknob for the front door so that self-check-in was available. 

All of this took a lot of work, but after that, I was traveling the world, and sometimes I wouldn’t have to do any work for a month, and the business would be running just fine. There were a few times when I had to handle situations, on the phone trying to find a handyman, or a pest control company, but for the most part it all ran itself. Over the course of 1½ years, I brought in over $50,000. This paid the mortgage (building equity), bills, and gave me an average of $1,000 in profit every month. That $1,000 was more than enough to pay for my Airbnb’s across Europe while I traveled. 

Housesitting

When I came back to the US, I was making so much money on my house, that I decided not to live there much anymore. I had bookings for months in advance. I stayed with some friends and went to visit family, but then I decided to see if there were any local housesitting opportunities. 

Sure enough, there was a couple who lived about 20 minutes from my house and they were headed north for a couple of months, needing someone to care for their cats. They had a beautiful home on a huge lake, and I stayed for free at their house in exchange for watching their cats, while I made a profit on my house. 

This was a great situation for me, but housesitting is also something you can do all over the world. I have used one site for years and highly recommend it. You can check it out here. 

Jobs That Provide Housing

I was traveling for most of 2019 and came home for a few months at the beginning of 2020. Well, we all know what happened after that. I was supposed to be flying back to Spain in early April, but COVID changed my plans, along with the rest of the world. I had already been staying with friends for those first three months of the year, and felt it was time to give them some space, knowing I might be stuck for a while. 

I ended up taking a job at a sports focused boarding school for teenagers. This job required that we live on property to be available for the kids, so housing was included. I already worked a full time job remotely, but was able to work nights/weekends for my second job. Even though COVID was hard for everyone, rather than being stuck at home, I made the most of it and earned two full-time salaries, while living without having to pay rent or utilities. In the two-year period that I was there, I paid off $50,000 in debt and began saving at a rate I had never been close to before. This was the beginning of working toward financial independence for me. It was hard work, but it would have taken 5 to 10 years to do the same thing if I had only been working my one job and having to pay rent. It was 100% worth the sacrifice … and why not. I couldn’t travel anyway. 

Rent Hacking

Even though I had a really good experience as a homeowner renting out my house as an Airbnb, I didn’t love the risk that was hanging over my head at times. For example, if something went wrong with the house, I could be out a lot of money in maintenance. Or if there was a hurricane that destroyed the house, my whole mortgage could be on the line if I couldn’t rent it out for several months. I ended up selling that first house. Part of me regrets it. But that has opened up other opportunities.

In early 2022, I went back to having one job and needed housing, so I wanted to get creative about living rent free. I found a house listed for rent on Facebook Marketplace. The main house had four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Attached to the house was another one bedroom, one bathroom unit that was completely separate. I reached out to the landlord and asked if they would be open to me living in one of the units and renting out the other, possibly as a short term rental. He and the owner agreed. 

There were going to be a lot of costs going into it, so I asked a friend of mine, who also needed a place to live, if she would be open to partnering with me on this venture.

Both the main house and the small house needed a lot of cleaning and rethinking the spaces in order to make it nice. We decided to start by preparing the one bedroom unit to be an Airbnb. This took a whole lot of work. We painted almost all of the walls, Scrubbed the tile and the grout, painted the old refrigerator with chalkboard paint, and furnished the entire place. It took about a month to complete everything. Once we had it listed, it started booking right away at an average of $100 per night. We’ve never looked back. We are making almost as much money on this little one bedroom unit as I did five years ago renting out my entire 3 bedroom house. Of course, we are three minutes away from a major theme park, and it has a lake view, so it’s not too shabby. 

We then spent time fixing up the main house and furnishing it. It turns out that buying furniture for a 4 bedroom house takes a lot of work and money. This is another area where we got creative. We purchased several gently used items on Facebook Marketplace. I also found a listing from a young man who purchased a house to turn into a rental. The person who lived there previously had died, and the young man didn’t have time to do anything with the furniture left in the house. So he offered us all of the furniture in exchange for making sure that everything got taken out of the house and the shed, even the items we didn’t want. Well, this was a big job, but it meant thousands of dollars of free furniture for us. We rented a van, took one huge load to Goodwill, and then took two or three trips of furniture to our house. There were several pieces that we didn’t need for the house and were able to sell, making about $700. 

Once we had the house furnished, we each had a bedroom, but had two left that we could rent. Instead of trying to find two more roommates, we decided to pair the rooms together as a rental for someone who would like a bedroom and an office. We were able to rent this space out right away as well. 

I should note that we spent around $10,000 furnishing the house and paying the first month of rent and utilities without any renters. But for the last year and a half, we’ve both lived rent free, and on most months have made a profit between $300 and $1,000, paying ourselves back for the initial investment. 

I also want to mention one of the benefits of rent hacking. When something goes wrong with the air conditioner, the roof, with pests, the washer/dryer, or any other appliance or part of the house, all I have to do is call the landlord. We don’t pay for any of that. So, it’s very low risk in comparison to doing this with a house that you own. The other nice thing is that we can get out of the lease at any time with a 60 day notice, so there is nothing too big hanging over our heads.

Closing Thoughts

The purpose of this blog is not to give you an exact roadmap. Some of the things I’ve mentioned have taken big sacrifices, but they’ve all been worth it for me. No one will follow this exact same journey. But I do hope that it inspires you to think outside the box in terms of your job, where you live, what you do with your assets, and more. 

I can’t wait to see where your dreams will take you!