Today we’d like to introduce you to Kylee Niederhauser.
Kylee, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I suppose it all started with wanting to move back to Mission Beach. My husband and I had been living in Germany for almost four years and, after our son was born, decided that it was time to come home. There was never any doubt that we’d be back in San Diego and loved the idea of living in Mission Beach again, so we started looking at houses online and came across this tiny, sky-blue beach cottage. I knew immediately, from 6,000 miles away, that it was “the one”. It needed a lot of work, but also had plenty of charm – plus an apartment above the garage!
We had done a lot of traveling while living in Europe, and Airbnb was always our go-to for finding accommodation. We’d stayed in some great homes, and some not-so-great ones, and we felt like we had a good idea of what worked and what didn’t when it came to setting up a home as a short term rental. Nervous to make such a big life change, but also feeling confident, we decided to give hosting a try.
First, we had to give the upstairs apartment a major makeover. Well, first we had to negotiate the house purchase and move our family of three back to San Diego. Then we tore the apartment down to the studs for a full renovation. It was a big project with an unbelievable amount of decisions to make – from flooring to furniture and down to details like bed linens and which brand of coffee to stock. There was also the question of what to name our home, and in February of 2018, we listed The Rockaway House on Airbnb. I still remember the excitement of hearing that little *ding* on my phone the morning after our listing went live – our first booking!
A little over a year after we opened The Rockaway House, a friend reached out to us, asking if we’d like to invest in another property with him. We considered a handful of locations across the US and ultimately decided on Scottsdale, Arizona. We spent about a month in the desert, in the middle of summer, creating a beautiful vacation rental that we named Saguaro.
We also realized at this point that we had created a successful formula for setting up a short term rental home, and that scaling was possible. Adding interior design, vacation rental startup and property management components to our business has allowed us to expand in San Diego as well as the Coachella Valley.
Our upstairs apartment (the “o.g.”, if you will) is still available to rent year-round, but The Rockaway House as a brand is now a growing collection of thoughtfully designed vacation homes.
Has it been a smooth road?
As with any small business, it hasn’t been a completely smooth road. Our first big challenge – how to afford a home in Mission Beach as a young family – was in some ways what sparked the whole journey. It meant uprooting the life we’d built in Germany and putting all of our savings into a down payment and renovation costs, with no guarantees and with a (then) nine-month-old baby in tow!
Since opening up The Rockaway House to our first guests, we’ve had to learn to be extremely flexible, how to communicate with all types of personalities and the importance of being meticulous, because even the smallest detail can impact a guest’s stay.
Expanding into management has added another layer of complexity to our business, but it has also allowed me to continue to design and create unique spaces for our guests to enjoy.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
The Rockaway House is a curated collection of short term vacation rentals throughout Southern California and Arizona. We pride ourselves in creating a memorable guest experience across all of our properties, and in making our guests feel welcome from initial booking through check out. We also offer full-service interior design and property management services for individual owners of short term vacation rentals.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.staywithrockaway.com
- Email: info@staywithrockaway.com
- Instagram: @therockawayhouse
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