Firstly, welcome to the forum!
With a new child, I would be very careful how I approach this business. Buy an existing B&B, and you are stuck with it. If you find it difficult or completely incompatible to do it with a small child, you're in trouble. You could face foreclosure or absolute misery for years waiting for it to sell again.
If you currently have a good career, it might be better to buy a house in decent shape that would work and start your own Inn. Make it family friendly to mesh with your young family rather than trying to stuff your young family into someone else's concept and established clientele. Given the type of Inn you want to run, I strongly feel this would be your best option.
Starting from scratch takes a little longer, but requires less money up front. The internet (and a great, visible website) puts you on nearly equal footing with established Inns, and you can shape your reputation from the start rather than buying someone else's.
You can ease into it with your child, taking guests on a scale that you're comfortable with. You have to pay housing costs regardless of where you are, just be careful not to take on more renovations or a bigger payment than you can afford, especially if you decide B&B is not for you and close. Any type of house will work for a family friendly Inn...the less formal, the better. Even a one story ranch will do if it has the right amount of personal space.
It's far easier to get residential financing and then start working on opening and building your business. If one of you can continue working, so much the better..
wendydk said:
Firstly, welcome to the forum!
With a new child, I would be very careful how I approach this business. Buy an existing B&B, and you are stuck with it. If you find it difficult or completely incompatible to do it with a small child, you're in trouble. You could face foreclosure or absolute misery for years waiting for it to sell again.If you currently have a good career, it might be better to buy a house in decent shape that would work and start your own Inn. Make it family friendly to mesh with your young family rather than trying to stuff your young family into someone else's concept and established clientele. Given the type of Inn you want to run, I strongly feel this would be your best option.
Starting from scratch takes a little longer, but requires less money up front. The internet (and a great, visible website) puts you on nearly equal footing with established Inns, and you can shape your reputation from the start rather than buying someone else's.
You can ease into it with your child, taking guests on a scale that you're comfortable with. You have to pay housing costs regardless of where you are, just be careful not to take on more renovations or a bigger payment than you can afford, especially if you decide B&B is not for you and close. Any type of house will work for a family friendly Inn...the less formal, the better. Even a one story ranch will do if it has the right amount of personal space.
It's far easier to get residential financing and then start working on opening and building your business. If one of you can continue working, so much the better.
This is exactly what I was saying. I forgot to mention that I am working outside the business as DH is running it. We need my job still for HEALTH INSURANCE. Too many innkeepers forget about those costs when they quit work to run their inn. When I leave my job I'll be able to take it with me, but for just dh and me I expect it will cost around $600/month.
We will be able to handle this as we will at that time have five rooms and with the wine tours have the income of 10 rooms .
As a start up - it does not take time at all IF YOU HAVE A GREAT WEBSITE. We started booking right away and receive about 95% of our bookings from online.
RIki
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egoodell said:
This is exactly what I was saying. I forgot to mention that I am working outside the business as DH is running it. We need my job still for HEALTH INSURANCE. Too many innkeepers forget about those costs when they quit work to run their inn. When I leave my job I'll be able to take it with me, but for just dh and me I expect it will cost around $600/month.
RIki
Right. Everyone needs to keep in mind the additional expenses that may have been covered elsewhere, or at least partially covered by outside employment. As a wake-up call, our health insurance is around $1200/month for 2 adults, no children. Because we are employees of the business, it's a business expense. The business has to
make that money in order to pay it out. That's the catch.
On the other hand, we don't require business clothing or lunch money or commuting costs any longer! Depending on how far you have to travel, who you need to interact with and what your daily work schedule looks like, these savings could more than cover having to get a personal health insurance policy.
Child care costs are gone if you both work from home. Costly haircuts can be minimized. Buying lunch is out. Lots of places where costs can be cut.
Our mortgage lender required that we have enough personal income to cover our own monthly expenses. We have to pay for a personal phone, our utilities, food, clothing, vacations, car expenses not related to the business, medical and dental expenses not covered by our policy and all of that. So that is something else the OP has to be aware of. There are definitely months we are skimping on one thing to pay for another.
My partner needs dental work done that we can't afford. It will have to wait until it is either an emergency situation or we save up for it.
If the business is not making a profit, you cannot get a salary from it. If you can't get a salary, you can't get any kind of retirement plan.
Lots of things to think about in throwing all of your eggs into that one basket.
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