University Avenue, Downtown Palo Alto – Dec 2018. Photo by Challen
Have you ever stayed as a guest in a BNB? How was your experience?
Are you interested to learn more about starting a BNB? What kind of questions would you like answered?
I’ve been posting on my Palo Alto BNB (Bed and Breakfast) Page since December 17th, 2018, been involved (among other things) in the operations of this hospitality business since October 2017, and was directly involved with the renovation of the family-owned property prior.
2018 POSTS
Instead of bombarding you with real time posts on my personal daily social media feed, I’ve summarized my first 8 posts for your convenience. If you’d like to see them real-time, please go “like” my Facebook Page “Palo Alto BNB” or follow my website at www.paloaltobnb.net
There you can learn about some of the issues running a BNB and the area of Palo Alto and some real estate details of surrounding area.
BNB’s are a popular choice in the San Francisco Bay Area and Palo Alto is not exception. With the rise of locally headquartered companies like Apple, Facebook and Google, and other companies small and large attracting thousands into the local work force they provide a regular stream of professional transients from around the nation and internationally who perform their business in synergy with the local economy.
Facebook is particularly interesting because despite the prestige of being associated with the City od Menlo Park, which is one step north of the ubiquitous “Palo Alto”, Facebook headquarters is actually adjacent to one of the lowest income-per-capita residential areas on the San Francisco peninsula (though not particularly low on a national scale). The City is East Palo Alto is part of San Mateo County, unlike the internationally-known City of Palo Alto which is the northern most city in Santa Clara County. Only a highway, for the most part, separates the two cities of common name.
Stanford University looking towards Palo Alto from Hoover Tower. Photo by Challen
Santa Clara County also includes Silicon Valley cities like Mountain View (Google), Sunnyvale (Lockheed Martin), Cupertino (Apple), Santa Clara (Intel), Palo Alto (Stanford University and Hospital, Hewlett Packard, Tesla), Los Gatos (Netflix), the behemoth city of San Jose (Cisco) and other smaller and often more affluent communities stretching into the beautiful foothills of the San Francisco peninsula.
A Google map of the Bay Area
To give you just a bit of the contrast between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto, in 1990-92 East Palo Alto earned the dubious distinction of being the “murder capital” of the United States.
Criminal and illicit drug dealing activities were so rampant in this decades-old lower socio-economic area, residents and commuters were frightened to drive down main thoroughfares for fear of being car-jacked by brazen criminals. Moreover, the homicide rate was so intimidating (in 1992, there were 42 homicides) it made my law enforcement friends who worked in Compton, CA balk at the prospects of having to jump into the fray.
Fortunately for the community, the state and local law enforcement agencies did step in and with sweeping campaigns putting the area on the right track removing entrenched drug crime elements. Nearly 20 years later and steady progress has made the East Palo Alto a much safer place to live and to work, the future prospects continue to look bright.
Image source: Peeryfoundarion.org showing the boundary of East Palo Alto in relation to two corporate giants.
The potential of the area of East Palo Alto is probably best evidenced by Facebook’s Menlo Park move (2011) and breakaway expansion plans which paralleled more major anti-drug actions in East Palo Alto bringing even more substantial changes to the peace of the community in the last few years.
While the recent high-flying developments in the real estate market are widespread in the San Francisco Bay Area, including East Palo Alto, the area still has a deep community of lower income residents and home owners who are proud and happy to be established there. Progress continues to be made to improve living conditions and it attracts more companies like Amazon, a recent addition to the business landscape of East Palo Alto in addition to investor-philanthropists like the Zuckerbergs and Laurene Powell Jobs, both residents of Palo Alto.
A sharp contrast still exists, however, as highlighted in a recent article, a particular zip code in Palo Alto has registered the most expensive average real estate prices in the country.
From a financial investor standpoint, rental rates per home value ratios are often more favorable in East Palo Alto, where properties can still be found for under $1M, when compared to Palo Alto despite Palo Alto’s safer, quieter, established neighborhoods and highly-regarded schools. For example, a 3 bedroom 1 bath home in East Palo Alto, valued at about $1M may rent for about $4000 per month where as a similar Palo Alto home (humble based on trends in home building) may only rent for $6500 per/month but cost $2.5M.
Downtown Palo Alto on a Winter day. Photo by Challen
Although this previous example of rental rates is only an single snapshot (rents can be substantially varied and higher in both cities, especially in Palo Alto, given more valuable properties) the demand for rentals remains strong. This could be reinforced by the fact many professionals are assuming not to buy properties (in the Bay Area) but rather opting to rent or lease believing their long term plans will take them out of the area (where property is less expensive among other reasons) or that their investments are better situated outside of the real estate market.
What makes BNB popular, nevertheless, is not so much related to the real estate values, it is better linked to the professional transients in the area with the proliferation of business activity, Stanford University, Stanford Hospital and the others variety of needs for temporary accommodations in this hub of Silicon Valley where a home is preferred.
Probably the one device that is makes having a BNB most convenient
And makes self-checkin a breeze is the keyless entry system.
With this system, a guest can be a assigned a personalized code, meaning they are the only guest who have access to their code, which they can enter at anytime during their reservation period.
In other words, they can arrive at midnight and I, as a host, do not have to meet them with a key or have to be concerned about having a loose key sitting exposed on the premises.
A lock box is an alternative, but then you have to worry about the guest accidentally misplacing the key or possibly even making copies of your keys.
There are several services available to support the keyless entry, our locks require a keypad where at any time, a guest can enter their code to enter the house.
Moreover, they have the option of entering a code of their choosing.
The way this works is by adoption of the special internet called “IOT” or Internet of Things. This allows humanless connections of devices and central servers at, let’s a say, a security company whose database manages your guest codes. Quite strange and also making the process of checking in and out a much more smooth transaction.
The other way it works is that it replaces your deadbolt so that it only allows a guest to open the bolt from the outside with the code.
For the convenience of everyone involved, both you and the guest, it is suggested you use this system on every entry door to your BNB. The last I checked, the cost per rock is about $300, including life time service, but you can check for yourself the recent offerings on the market.
This kind of entry may be best applied to a BNB where the host does not reside on premises.
It does take a little time to set up but once you have it working to can also create special codes for each person that requires access to the property, or example, a maintenance tech, cleaning person, or a co-host.
It is also possible you can cancel any particular code if it is not needed anymore.
Some drawbacks that you will need to be prepared for are:
The system we use which is based on a SCHLAGE deadbolt, runs on a battery so eventually you will get a signal that the battery is weak and that you need to open the lock and replace the battery. Our has run over a year without issue.
As a backup, we offer a traditional lock box with a key inside just in case something breaks or some other emergency occurs.
Overall, we are pleased with the service that we use and our guests would agree.
Palo Alto BNB 