I recently shared on Instagram that we have built a great revenue stream by allowing photo and commercial shoots in our home. You all have been so intrigued that I figured I would put together a quick “how-to” about renting your home for production shoots; it’s surprisingly easy to get started. After reading this you can be up and running in one day and making that passive money honey.

Become A Property Host With These Platforms

Peerspace: typically smaller brand photo and video shoots (less full-on commercial/ movie production). I have personally used Peerspace to book photo shoot locations (like this one for my swim line), so I was very comfortable with the platform before we put our house on it. Start here to list your space.

• The cut: 15% of the total booking amount

• Time for pay out: 5 - 7 days from booking date

• Insurance coverage: The Peerspace Host Insurance Policy protects hosts for up to $1,000,000 for general liability claims. Every booking made on Peerspace is covered automatically

Giggster: a mix of smaller brand shoots and larger productions. We have personally found more success on Peerspace but have had shoots from companies like Zara come from Giggster. List your space here.

• The cut: 15% of the location fee (not additional fees like cleaning)

• Time for pay out: 5 - 7 days from booking date

• Insurance coverage: None. Renters have the option to purchase Giggster Damage Protection. The Damage Protection option is not an insurance policy.

Giggster makes it easy for renters to obtain city permits which in some cities (like Brentwood for example) is required, even for the smallest of shoots. The process is usually complicated for the renter (not host) so it’s nice that Giggster offers support on this. We typically don’t require renters to get a city permit unless it’s a larger scale production that requires trucks parked on our street and 40+ people that would potentially disrupt our neighbors.

What You Need to Get Started

A property to rent out: does it need to be museum worthy or fit a certain aesthetic? Not at all. If you feel like you have something to offer - an incredible backyard, airy open kitchen, a specific type of fireplace - those are all rental worthy. My suggestion is to peruse the sites to see what other people are offering to get a feel for what’s out there. It took me a long time to get our space listed because I felt like we needed the decor to be PERFECT and could not decide on wall art. Finally I just said, let’s try it and guess what? We still have nothing on our walls and I actually think it works in our favor because it’s a blank canvas for productions to come in and do what they want.

Photos of your space: these don’t need to be professional. I took most photos with my iPhone and edited them to make them a little more crisp. We did have the benefit of having previous photoshoots in our space, so I could use those photos as well. Get everything clean and organized, snap some pics (vertical + landscape). The more the better. Try shooting in .5 to get wide angles and when natural light is the best.

Title + Description + Pricing: Go through similar style properties to yours to figure out how to perfectly title and price your property. It’s important to be very descriptive so your property pops up in searches. For example, our house is Spanish style and we have a spacious backyard plus an open kitchen with great light. All of that is included in our title to ensure anyone looking to do a backyard shoot or a cooking shoot will definitely see our place in their search results. For pricing, I went through 10 “similar” listings to ours to see how others were pricing and backed into ours. With Giggster you can allow them to price for you which can be helpful!

Schedule: set your schedule. If you are super flexible you can keep your calendar wide open and allow for automatic booking. We do not do that because I like to chat with guests about their shoot needs before finalizing everything. ie: one time we had a request from Playboy and thankfully they wanted to be sure we were okay with certain kinds of photos.

Once you get your first Inquiry

Good questions to ask renters:

• What is the shoot day length/ approximate times?

• What is their cast & crew size?

• What areas of the location will be needed?

• Do they need to set up scout dates?

• Project type/name (Stills, Indie, Feature, Commercial)

• Do they have production insurance?

• Are they pulling a permit?

• What are their parking needs?

After confirming, send over all logistical details for them and answer any additional questions. I also like to ask for a day-of contact so we can start a text chain with the renter, myself and my sister.

What We’ve Learned

Allow for Flexible Pricing: I change our price based on our schedule. ie: If we are out of town and our house is just sitting there I lower the price. When we are home I hike it up to our sweet spot that makes it worth it for us to be away for the day.

No events! After 2 event bookings, hubs and I decided to stop allowing events and parties. There are 2 reasons why: 1) I started to become a party planner and the work was not worth the pay out. 2) When you open your place for “party guests” you’re looking at more damages and carelessness vs. production rentals which are professionals there to work and are much more respectful of the property. At one point we thought about increasing the event rate x 2 but realized it really wasn’t worth it for us.

There will be damages. Especially with larger crews and camera equipment. We have a handful of nicks and scrapes on our walls. And there is one candle holder that legitimately gets broken EVERY booking. Thankfully guests always replace it but at this point it’s just comical. Other than that we haven’t had any large scale damages, thankfully.

Renters don’t read. I detail out EVERYTHING for our renters about the check-in and lock-up process and yet 70% of the time they are texting me at our door, asking me how to get in. It’s slightly annoying but I’ve just realized it’s going to happen.

FAQ:

Do you have to rent out your whole place? No! We do not include our primary bedroom/bathroom in our listing. Primarily because that’s where all our “STUFF” goes when we do rentals. I have also booked places that ONLY allow use of the backyard - so feel free to make your listing work for you, just remember to price it correctly.

What do you do with all your stuff? As I mentioned above, everything extra goes in our primary bedroom. We live a pretty minimal life in general, so that definitely helps. We really just have to put away my daughter’s toys and gear. Other then that we leave most things as is. It’s a lot of trust but I also have VERY little attachment to "“things” which is somewhat required to do this unless you plan on being on site for all of your bookings.

How do you manage the space when you’re away? One of the main reasons we started to do this outside is because we LOVE to travel. Renting our space on Peerspace and Giggster allow us to cover the mortgage (and some) which makes our travel costs a little easier to swallow. How we do it: remote lock on the door that we can open from anywhere, trusted cleaner that comes in after each booking, and my sister who acts as our house manager for any issues or communication that I can’t address if I’m in a different time zone, flying, etc. It’s a lot easier than people assume. Yes, you have to be trusting of the process but so far we haven’t had any issues.

How do you market your property and get your first listing? Honestly we have never marketed our listings primarily because I want people to find it for the space not because it’s mine. Obviously I am in a different situation than most but either way I think it’s a good example of how the platforms can work for you without you doing much to promote your space. Once we got our first booking and 5 star review, the inquiries started flowing and haven’t really stopped. That being said it doesn’t hurt to share on social or even create its own Instagram page if you’re really looking to push the property.

I think that’s it! Once I said “we’re doing this” it took me less than 3 hours to get set-up on both platforms and we had our first booking two weeks later. You’ve got this!! Always happy to answer Qs. Just slide into my DMs or comment below. xx - Ashley