To ask if anyone has any ideas how to make money from a large property

[Beyondourmeans]

Don't want this to be a 'my diamond shoes are too tight' kind of problem. But we are struggling as we live in a large property with high running costs, including an outdoor pool (here when we got here we never would have put one in).
Running costs for the house and pool are very high and that's without maintenance jobs/repairs/updating which we're not on top of so gradually it's all looking more unkempt.

I've thought of air b&b or a lodger but my husband isn't on board (would have to give up his 'music room') and we are a pretty messy and chaotic family so having someone here all the time like a lodger feels too intrusive.

We could fill in the pool - the kids would grumble a bit and we do have a couple of lovely parties per year but I'm not sure it would be that missed. Would it devalue the property though?

thought of offering the pool for swimming lessons but not sure how it would work with insurance etc and then it really would have to be spotlessly clean and chemicals always in perfect balance. It's also a bit heated but pretty chilly!

Does anyone know if you can hire out a room for daytime hire like for therapy or teaching? We do have a downstairs room with a separate door and bathroom next to it. (The aforementioned 'music room').

We have spare garden - does anyone know if you can rent out some like for an allotment? But then there's no shortage of allotments round here.

If anyone has any ideas I haven't thought of please share! Ultimately it may be best to move but want to see first if we can make it work.

Can you sell some of your spare garden for a developer to build a house/houses on it?

Oops...I was completely wrong about the council tax, mixed up annual and monthly

Presumably you've sat down together and discussed your income and outgoings (and of course the childcare cost is a shared one...) - so does he have any suggestions?

I don't think getting rid of the pool would devalue the house at all, quite the opposite. Outdoor pools in the UK are seen as a liability, and can put prospective buyers off. That would be the first thing I got rid of.
Taking in a lodger is a good idea, but would it really help financially?
You oh is mad not to shop around for insurance, you could be paying well over the odds.
In your situation I would seriously consider moving or you are going to end up in ever increasing debt. Or, as others have said, can you sell some land for development?
Have you got any solar power?

Your mortgage isn't exactly huge is it? Is that repayment or interest only? What's the plan for when interest rates start rising?

My DC had swimming lessons in the pool of a large local house for a bit. They stopped because, as you mentioned, it became too difficult to keep the pool clean enough with all these different filthy kids swimming in it.

I suspected they were trying to make the pool pay for itself as I noticed a leaflet about pool parties lying around. So I agree that renting for swimming lessons might not be a plan BUT our swimming teacher did say that there are lots of swiming teachers but few pools for them to use so you never know . . . (Our lessons just had to finish when this pool wasn't available, and the one she had used before that in another location had developed a fault and been taken out of use. Luckily the DC could swim by then.)

Do you have any boarding school near you? A friend makes a decent amount taking in foreign students (secondary age) for weekends and ex officio (I think it's called) weeks when it is too far for them to go home for the weekend. Could this be an option?

You could approach local swimming schools/teachers and hire out your pool for private swimming lessons.

My school has a pool and this is a good source of income for us.

Could you hire the pool out to a swimming instructor? In our area people with pools often do this.

We created a separate apartment in our house and let it out through airbnb. They have their own entrance and this makes it work so well. I often never even meet our guests but earn about £15k a year which pays for the too big house. There is a bedroom, bathroom and sitting room and tiny kitchenette. The thing with airbnb is it doesn't have to be perfect but clean and functional and make it very clear on the listing what's there. Then you might be able to afford a decent garden shed for your husband's music practice!

Ok this is what someone in our family did ( very large house, outdoor pool)
Initially they kept the pool heated only for the high Summer months. In Winter the pool was drained. More recently they have filled in the pool, as they felt it was a bit pointless for the number of days it was used. The garden is open to the public, so it probably looks lovelier without the pool anyway. The pool was built in the 70s on the site of a wing which had been demolished, so that area is very flat and works well as a seating area in the garden.
The house was very expensive to heat so they have installed ground source heating . They don’t have any need to do Airbnb or have lodgers, but they have tried to cut down the running costs.
I think if you can get your garden looking reasonably pretty, it doesn’t have to be neat , just picturesque, then a shepherds hut or cabin in the garden to rent for holidays is a good idea, although you would obviously need the initial outlay. Would renting a room out mean the loss of the music room ? Do you not have a couple of spare bedrooms ? Doesn’t matter if your house is messy as long as the area you rent is pretty and very clean. ( we have staye in a lot of Airbnb places) . Yes you can organise yoga /Pilates classes etc, although I’m not sure how well that pays, however a local mansion does them so it must be worth it. Art classes too? Music days ?

thank you for all your input and not just telling me to piss off with my first world problems! (I am aware how lucky we are)

To answer some questions - yes childcare will drop somewhat in 2 yrs when youngest starts school but then eldest will start secondary and I'm expecting that teenagers are pretty costly.

Yes mortgage is not bad and we have a good amount of equity so I would think we could buy somewhere else big enough (4 bedrooms) outright maybe.
We have done a lot of work to this house in terms of changing the layout etc and I do feel an emotional attachment to it alongside it feeling like a mill stone!

I also find it hard that I think people make assumptions on disposable income based on a big house so e.g. Tradesmen adding % to their quotes.

I think the issue of playing a loud instrument and being able to rent out a room is probably more manageable with air b&b than a permanent lodger. I didn't say befits that the music room/bathroom bit also has a kitchenette (no cooker but fridge and sink) tho it currently houses our washing machine & drier so we'd ideally relocate those or not be able to use them when guests were here.

Perhaps I should get an estate agent round to ask opinion on value and if removing pool would have any effect either way. Certainly a badly maintained one would detract I'm sure.

First of all well done to you for looking at finances rather than leaving it to the husband. That's stage one well done.

Secondly even if you count childcare as 100% from your wages- we never did we both needed childcare to work and I earned more than my other half - once the children are older you won't have that so you are investing in a career that could last 30 years and well worth keeping on evevn if you only have a net £500 a month after childcare - that alone pays your heating and elec bills.

I live in a fairly big house with higher heating and council tax bills than you do.

You have a mortgage so I would start by reading the policy - it might prohibit some of the business plans you have for the property. then check your insurance as that might also or need to be changed. then check planning laws -ours is a conservation area so we cannot even change the front drive without months of planning applications.

Once you have sorted out the legal side what about leaving the house for a month in the summer. We used to rent a lovely country house with tennis court with our parents some summers and the older couple who owned it would move out and then keep the 2 or 4 weeks rental money each year. You could do that on air bnb and just squash in with relatives for tha tmonth - although very disrupting. I would take a second jobs actually - we both did that as well as full time jobs at one point - very hard work but certainly meant extra money. I also marked exam papers in my "spare" time for extra fees.

We once got £10k to let the house for about 10 days of filming. It rarely happened again though and as you say they tend to want big places which are top of the range or something unusual - falling down castle so I would not bank on that.

My view is without disruption it is hard to make the house an asset like this. It was the traditional way though - I found a relative in the 1800s who let out a room in a house. Then my granny in her very small house ended up letting the top floor (i.e. 2 rooms) to a lodger. My great uncle rented a room in a house until he was nearly 50 before he married when he was younger in the early 1900s.

Your husband's views on the insurance are not great in my view. I have got my insurance down from £1800 a year at peak to about £400. Have a very big excess and don't leave valuable stuff where it can be broken into if he is worried about garden implements. Lock them up.

Have a look for local swimming pools hire and then you can contact them to see if they'd like to put your pool on your books. You can also get in contact with local swimming teachers and ask if they'd be interested. In both cases check for insurance that they have. Public liability insurance for you shouldn't be too much. Also photographers might be interested if you can turn a room into a studio. Other options include if the environment is nice enough, having a marquee and renting out as an reception venue - lots of weddings like the idea of an outdoor venue.

sorry if this offends but large house pool and ground you could earn good money hiring it out of porn film shoots

@sirvixofvixhall house is not that big (4 good sized bedrooms upstairs plus box room and low ceiling height loft room/play room but we have 3 kids), none with ensuite bathroom, then downstairs single storey 'annexe' with bedroom part currently used as music room. There is another study/potential music room downstairs but that's right next to annex so you couldn't play loud instrument there with guests.

Sensible option is to make use of Annex but hard to do that when DH is not on board/in denial about finances.

could you have solar panels put in to help lower the cost of electric.
Then look at insulation etc to reduce heating costs?

Speak to local swimming teachers to clarify the insurance/demand points? If that’s not a goer, I’d drain and leave the pool tbh. And then get a language student in (into the spare room, not the pool, though I feel a quirky AirBnB listing coming on).

Good idea will check on swimming pool hire. it is particularly difficult to clean and requires more chemicals/heating because it has a very deep deep-end! Would be a lot easier if it was all shallow.

Apparently we can't just frank and leave it as it would close in on itself....! Over the winter it gets dosed up with chemicals and pump/heater kicks in at very low temps to prevent freezing.

*drain not frank!

But might we get more air b&b with the pool?

OP, my dh was not on board re airbnb either. Until we looked at costs v income and other people started mentioning what a great idea this would be. So maybe enlist the help of some friends whose opinion he values. Also, wrt airbnb you can set it so you have 24 hours between lettings in order to get changeovers done if you're out working. I have found it to be very host friendly (to the point that I am quite evangelical about it )

might we get more air b&b with the pool?

More than the very expensive cost of the pool seems unlikely, no?