Advice Needed: How to List a Partial Home / Hospitality Stay?

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Hi everyone! :waving_hand:

We’re new to HomeExchange and looking for some advice on how to list our home in a flexible way.

Our house is a spacious, three-story home in Asheville, NC. We’re interested in offering hospitality stays on the bottom floor, which has a separate entrance.

It includes:

  • 2 bedrooms
  • 1 full bathroom
  • A living area with projector & surround sound
  • A wet bar
  • A walk-out covered patio with fire pit, ping pong, and hammock

The main and upper floors of the house (which we’d keep private during these stays) include 3 more bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. We’d be living upstairs during hospitality swaps but are open to hosting guests on the lower level when the full house isn’t needed.

Questions for the community:

  1. What’s the best way to list only the lower level as an option for guests?
  2. Can we create a second listing just for the downstairs? Or should this be explained in the main listing somehow?
  3. For those of you who offer hospitality stays or partial homes—how do you manage?

Appreciate any tips or examples! We’d love to make this work well for guests and keep things super clear from the start. :blush:

Thanks in advance!
– Jennifer

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I would list the lower level separate and maybe mention in your main listing but you have to be clear about if this is a space without a kitchen because if you keep upstairs private that is a cooking dilemma. You also have to decide if you will list the basement plus house in the full listing and block the calendar on the basement when you make the full house available.

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Yes, you list it as a second home and precise you’ll live just above

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We list a separate space as its own listing. It is marked as a second home, which brings it up in some searches that our main home would be screened out of. We mark it as almost always available for GP swaps, unless we are away or have family using it. We make it clear that we will be home in the main house during exchanges, and we will not offer it for exchange at any time the main house is being exchanged. It has been quite successful in terms of generating guest points for us in the 18 months or so that we have offered it.

I agree with cafrobose about the kitchen. Some folks might find the space attractive if they plan to eat out a lot, but without a proper place to cook it limits the audience. With ours, I built a small kitchenette with a sink, fridge, microwave, countertop oven, and portable induction cooktop. A sink large enough to do dishes in was important, so a wet bar sink would be iffy, depending on how big it is. At a minimum, I would want a fridge, microwave, portable cooktop, and electric kettle, as well a full set of cooking utensils and place settings. For the most part, our guests have not really used the countertop oven, so that may not be needed. I wanted to provided everything, though, so as long as we were upgrading the space it was fairly easy. I did have to add a couple of extra 20A circuits for the appliances.

I am aware of a few other hosts with this type of setup. Some of them are happy to move into either area themselves, so if a larger groups wants the main area they will move into the smaller one. We do not do that for our spaces.

As examples you can see our two listing on our profile: John & Lauren

If it were not for your cat I would have been interested in visiting your space as we do like visiting the southern Appalachians in the springtime.