Starting a BNB? 8 Reasons you didn’t think about

So you are thinking about starting a BNB, eh?

A floppy bunny sleeping on the wall, A fine oil painting from a Renaissant or Medieval BNB, 😉 from Stanford Cantor Arts Center – photo by Challen

Here are 8 reasons you may not have thought about yet. Well, maybe you thought of them but you could still use some moral reinforcement.

You do not want a long-term lease. Not only do you not want one, it may become an obstacle. The future of your property is in question and you as a property owner do not want to get caught in a long term lease during a time where you may want or need to sell the property or you may need to move into the home yourself.
You want to maintain the property in excellent condition. You may be a complete anal-retentive owner and want maximum control over the condition of the house by avoiding long term leases. As responsible as a long term tenant may be, they are unlikely to keep the house in as good a condition or correct problems in the same manner as you would.
Your house is better designed for short-term occupants or guests. Most people staying long term have long term storage needs, including for the natural accumulation of stuff. If your place does not have much storage without significant remodeling or improvements, the lack of storage becomes an obvious disadvantage to get the highest lease rates but as a BNB with guests staying less than a month or a day or two, it is not an issue.
You love hospitality. Your long term tenant may think you are a nice responsible property manager, but you are not expected to be responsible in anyway to provide multiple “tenants” with their situational accommodating, being involved with opening the door, responding nicely to people at all times of the day or week, be concerned what impression they get when they see your prepared beds, picking out a guest menu – like what kind of coffee you have ready for their quick breakfast, or if the TV can get a particular movie channel. But you thrive on this kind of work and enjoy helping responsible people make sure they have a nice experience.
You can accept inconsistencies. Not every guest that signs up, stays signed up. You will get cancellations on occasion. Not everyone responds to you the same way. You will get some people who will bend the rules or are not quite as clean as you would hope. On the other hand, you will find where your own routine needs to be more efficient, whether it is how you followup with guest inquiries or how you go through your place to prepare it. After several guests, you will get intended and unintended feedback. No plan starts out perfect nor does it remain perfect. It takes some faith that things work out despite the inconsistencies.
You are a bored panda. It could be in your particular phase of life, you need the daily responsibility of managing a property, maintaining your listing site, website or the marketing strategies you are going to employ.
You have teflon skin. In other words, maybe not what you thought … You can tolerate some jealously, even hatred, from others. Anytime you try to do something that most other people do not, you may incur some adverse reactions for doing something that has the appearance of being successful even though it takes real work to get things going and keeping it going.
You value setting your own destiny. By being in the driver’s seat to make decisions, you control your own destiny and that brings you more peace. This one takes some experience, for example, balancing making money from accepting a variety of guests versus being willing to politely screen out those who don’t meet your standards. If you accept a person who may have triggered your scrub alarm instead of leaping effortlessly over your Shaolin-monk-worthy guest criteria (even if they needed some gentle persuasion), you could likely subject yourself to the hell of wondering what’s going to go wrong until they arrive and leave (assuming they don’t cancel at the last minute). Hence, you may be able to hit the abort switch to be at peace rather than make a few more bucks.