A few years ago, I unexpectedly acquired a piece of property when my great-great aunt passed away.
- I didn’t even know that I had this aunt, but she left me a good-sized piece of land with an old house situated on it.
I was extremely grateful for the beneficial gift, but I honestly had no use for this piece of property or home. I lived in a city far away and wasn’t about to move my entire family for the sake of a free house. Besides, the home needed a lot of work before it could be habitable. Over time, I performed the labor necessary to get the house in living shape. At that point, I decided it was wise to start renting it out as an Airbnb for extra income each month. The additional money would help a great deal with utility bills which have been climbing through the roof. At the time, I didn’t realize that owning airbnb’s could end up costing you money. The first time someone stayed at the old house, everything seemed fine until I got the energy bill a few weeks later. That’s when I found out that they had been abusing the hell out of the central heating and cooling system in the large house. Because the existing Heating and Cooling equipment was at least 10 years old, it wasn’t incredibly energy efficient and it had missed many routine service appointment will my great-great-aunt was ill. The deaths of the house sufficiently operated the forced air furnace to the point that they drove our energy bills through the roof. I realized that I knew, if I wanted to maintain my Airbnb, I was going to need to upgrade the HVAC system.