Renting a Summer Cottage, Renting a House: Personal Experience
Hi everyone, in this video I want to share my personal experience renting a dacha in the Moscow region. My experience turned out to be a huge failure, both financially and emotionally.
I viewed renting a dacha as a base for relaxation and meeting friends, spending the summer, picturing movies of everyone gathering and having a great time barbecuing, by the fireplace, and in the sauna.
Last year, we did just that, renting a house by the day in Zavidovo. We went to the Volga, went wakeboarding, cycling, cooked pilaf, grilled meat, and steamed in the sauna. We truly relaxed!
The most important word is REST. You call the owners in advance, they prepare the house, heat the sauna, provide clean blankets, pillows, towels, and mow the lawn.
When you rent “your home” long-term, all this responsibility falls on YOUR shoulders. Whether you have a staff member helping out or you do everything yourself, there's a certain amount of labor required to get a business up and running.
1-Cleaning the house
2-Towels, sheets, linens
3-Firing the sauna, stove, and fireplace + moving and preparing firewood + purchasing
4-Cleaning the grounds, mowing the grass
5-Purchasing consumables, such as
6-Electricity
7-Trash collection
Considering all these facts, it's worth calculating the pleasure and emotion per ruble spent. This year, I decided to find a house to live in nature, as Moscow is incredibly draining with its pace and noise. I wanted peace, fresh air, and the opportunity to contemplate nature.
In April, I found a summer cottage in a beautiful area of Solnechnogorsk, near three lakes, a huge pine forest, peace and quiet, and wonderful hosts. A fireplace, a stove, a sauna, a veranda, apple trees – BUT! The house had been unoccupied for two years and needed attention, and since I'm not afraid of work, I happily took on this saga. The rent was 30,000 rubles—a comfortable sum for our family.
This bourgeois mentality kicked in: fix it up, paint it, patch it up, and it'll be a blast. For a whole week, from morning until night, I painted, disinfected, sorted through trash, and tried to get the house in order, but like a black hole, it was a monstrous drain on time and energy.
At the hardware store, I first spent 3,000 rubles on paint and brushes, then 200 rubles on cleaning supplies, then 500 rubles on a hacksaw, and gradually the meter started ticking. My wife was the first to put the kibosh on the whole thing, but I didn't want to admit my mistakes and threw myself headfirst into the breach.
So, in May alone, my wallet was emptied by 60,000 rubles, and I barely got any rest. It was time to admit my mistakes and kill this stupid idea.
If I were to use a calculator and do the math, I could have spent that money on a fantastic stay in a great hotel with full board and service—RIP, not waste my time cleaning and landscaping.
You can draw your own conclusions and calculate the profitability of this idea.
/ alexanderkiselevphoto