Before AirBnb was even a thing, Joe has been talking about wanting to use our home as a way to make extra income (too bad he didn’t think of creating something like AirBnb!). I was not always on board with the idea, but for him, it just seemed so natural. We dipped our toe in the water of real estate/landlord life when we bought our second home together and decided to turn our first home into a full-time rental property. While it wasn’t the “on-site” rental that Joe had envisioned, it scratched his itch for awhile. But once AirBnb started to get more popular, it didn’t take long for Joe’s wheels to start turning again. We were living in Ahwatukee at the time on a 1/3 acre lot and the vision of creating an on-site income property came back in full force. We met with a contractor and began dreaming up building a casita on the property to use for our guests and to take the plunge into AirBnb life. But God soon showed us that He had different plans for us and was calling us to leave our “dream home” to make the move to Gilbert.

Once we decided to move to Gilbert, things started moving at the speed of a freight train. Ideas and visions we had had for years, all started coming together in a matter of months. We bought a house in a cute Gilbert neighborhood in August 2016 and found a perfect rental property for Joe’s mom to buy (she’s who Joe got the rental property itch from!) in the same neighborhood the following month. Since she lives out of state, we were in charge of managing that transaction and renting it out. You’d think being part of two home sales in two months (technically three if you count the sale of our Ahwatukee house) would be enough but God kept on opening doors for more. While Joe’s mom was in town for the closing of her new rental property, the house next door to hers came up for sale. It was ADORABLE. Like straight out of a magazine. The three of us put our heads together and thought, “This would be an amazing AirBnb!” Before we knew it, we had set up a showing for that evening, had an offer in and were under contract the next day. Ahhhhhhh! We were really doing it. One year ago, almost to the day, we closed on the house and thus began our first taste of running an AirBnb. The adventure was just beginning…