How the other half lives

[question everything]

From a WSJ story:

The Endangered B&B

Inns Turn Into Private Homes, As Pinched Owners Cash Out; Rumsfeld Checks In for Good
By CONOR DOUGHERTY
August 11, 2006; Page W1

In a side effect of the real-estate boom, scores of traditional bed and breakfasts are closing down as new buyers turn them back into private residences. Behind the vanishing inns is a simple equation: Many B&Bs are worth more as properties than as businesses. And with the real-estate market showing signs of softening, innkeepers now have an immediate incentive to sell out and reap a windfall. Rising interest rates have also made it more difficult for innkeepers to pay the monthly mortgage and still turn a profit by renting rooms to weekenders.

As a result, many operators have served their last apple pancake. In Lenox, Mass., tree-lined Cliffwood Street has one B&B, down from three in the late 1990s. In Cape May, N.J., the owner of the Columns by the Sea turned her beachfront B&B into separate condominiums she's selling for up to $1.5 million. In Aspen, Colo., the owners of the Sardy House converted the inn into a six-bedroom single-family home, now on the market for $20 million. (The property also comes with a townhouse and an eight-bedroom carriage house.) In late 2003, the owners of Mount Misery Bed & Breakfast in St. Michaels, Md., decided it wouldn't be much use wooing would-be innkeepers, so they marketed it as a private home. It sold, for $1.5 million, to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115526074215232951.html?mod=hps_us_inside_today (subscription)

[Drum]

1. Mount Misery...how fitting! n/t

[LeftCoast]

2. They're not all bad people

Some are quite good progressives.

[question everything]

5. I love B&B and the people that run them

and am sorry to see many close. I have often wondered how they make ends meet.

But loved the comment about Rumsfeld..

[larrysh]

3. Rumsfeld must not be making much in his current job to be able

to afford a house worth only 1.5 million! No wonder we can't keep
civil service workers!

[Redstone]

4. Uh, we're buying a former B&B. But not for $1.5 million. I think the

answer might NOT be in the Evil Corporate Interests, nor even in the Evil Flatlander Yuppies (whom I do indeed hate), but in the fact that the road to bankruptcy court is paved with couples who saw a charming old house and exclaimed "this would be a perfect B&B" without doing their financial homework.

Same thing with "country stores" here in New England.

Redstone

[Ready4Change]

6. Does the Article mention lack of costumers?

I know a lot of people who frequented B&Bs in years past who have given that up, as one or both of the couples have reduced incomes due to lost jobs. Some who lost jobs may be working now, but are earning far less.

The result is less disposable income, so luxuries like B&B's are out.

[question everything]

7. More of the increase in real estate

For many operators, rising home and mortgage costs are the final nail in the coffin. Bed and breakfasts have traditionally been low-margin businesses that work best when home payments are small. Rising costs for liability insurance cut further into bottom lines. And these inns run some of the lowest occupancy rates in the hospitality business. Hotel rooms now stand at close to 71 percent occupancy, according to Smith Travel Research. In part because B&Bs depend less on weekday business travel than on seasonal and weekend guests, their occupancy rates are closer to 41 percent, according to PAII.

and..

The B&B industry is one of the latest to be impacted by this decade's real-estate runup. Golf courses have been razed to make way for home developments and tennis courts have been replaced by shopping centers, while many communities have seen summer camps cash in their land holdings. The inns also represent an old-style approach to traveling at a time when hotels are offering very different sorts of amenities. While new hotels pitch in-room exercise equipment, spa wings and loads of anonymity, the classic B&B experience includes communal breakfasts, small talk with fellow guests and invitations to pet the host's cat.

* * * * *

I also think that you really need to appreciate this kind of stay and today younger, hurried people don't have the patience. Most do not have TV in the room or internet hookup.

[sandnsea]

9. extreme pampering and sophistication

That's what I'm noticing travelers want too. I don't see how a B&B can compete with demanding boomers and a more sophisticated younger generation. Not to mention, I think a whole bunch of people over 50 thought they could retire early to their favorite week-end get-away by starting up a B&B. Where I live there's been a BUNCH in the last year or two. It stands to reason they won't all be successful, it takes lots of business networking and just the right personality to pull off a B&B.

[SoCalDem]

13. And I would also guess that a lot of 50-somethings who started them

a few years back..to have an income and an avocation in their retirement..are now getting older..

It may sound like fun , but I'm sure after a while, the novelty wears off and those innkeepers might just want to go off and enjoy their own lives, unencumbered ..

[Missy Vixen]

8. At the risk of being accused of being "the other half",

we used to stay in B&B's a couple of times a year. It was considered a big treat at our house, something that would be saved up for.

We stopped staying in B&B's after three negative experiences in a row. Our favorite innkeepers decided to bail almost ten years ago. They had no financial problems. Their issue was dealing with some of the guests who were less than, shall we say, delightful to host for a weekend, or even for a few hours. I'm also not nuts about sharing a bathroom with anyone but DH.

Julie

[question everything]

10. Sorry. "the other half" was for the buyers of B&B as their own homes

like dear old Rumsfeld. At least, buying a $1.5 million home...

I think that to own B&B one really has to like the company of people. Our first experience was a place right outside Yosemite. Many offer wine and cheese in the afternoon but our host would actually be the bar tender and he loved to chat. Both would be eating with us during breakfast for a delightful conversation even if one or two guests were shy.

Other B&Bs, in different places, we would barely see our host(s) during breakfast to tell us about the place..

Earlier this year, in a lovely place in Mendocino, we just interacted with employees who checked us in and keep the breakfast buffet. But the view was breathtaking, with sea lions bobbing close to the shore and not a cloud in the sky.

[Missy Vixen]

12. We really wanted to go to the B&B in California

featured in the VISA ad a few years ago. We went so far as to get the brochure, but never quite got there. Your experience in Mendocino sounds wonderful!

Julie

[jmowreader]

17. The "guest from hell" is, I believe, the real reason for the slump

in B&Bs.

Many of you enjoy my Customers of the Day stories that I post in the Lounge. If DU would have been founded between 1994 and 1996, you would have received those stories about hotel guests, and they'd have made the lumber customer stories look very weak.

Example: I checked someone into the hotel about 9:30 one evening--I normally didn't get there that early, but there was a big event in town and Bill, the general manager, had asked me to come in at 9 pm. About 9:50, the wife came to the desk screaming about how she wanted a free room because there was no television in the one I'd given her. Bill was at the desk, and he asked me to go confirm that there was no TV. (There are always rooms in a hotel that don't have TVs in them--TVs break--but we had those rooms flagged off so no one would be put in them.)

When I got to the room, I noticed immediately that there was no TV. I also noticed that there was a big hole gouged in the top of the dresser that was supposed to have the TV on it, and that there was a crowbar laying on the floor in front of the dresser.

I excused myself, went to the house phone hanging in the hallway, and told Bill he needed to go outside and look in their car, then call the police, and then call "America's Dumbest Criminals." I mean, come on: if you steal a room television, any property who checks IDs will find you. But to demand a free room after helping yourself to a free TV? I got called as a witness at the trial, and it was pretty funny: the woman was screaming, from the witness stand, that we were only doing this because she was black and the judge (a black female) said no, we're only doing this because you were too stupid to hide your crowbar before going to the front desk and raising a stink.

Oh yeah: I saw Bill a few weeks ago. He says that now he only buys $100 Wal-Mart televisions for his hotel instead of the $500 ones sold for in-room use. They last just as long--six to eight weeks--and cost one-fifth as much. After all, if you deal exclusively with guests who are capable of breaking anvils, why buy expensive anvils?

[jmowreader]

18. I better inject a relevant comment in here

Many of the people who stay in B&Bs think owning one would be a perfect business--you open part of your home to guests, you cook them the kind of breakfast you enjoy. It's great. They're gracious guests who are welcomed by gracious hosts, so they figure all of the people who frequent B&Bs are like them.

Ain't so, Joe.

This world, sad to say, is full of assholes. Some of these assholes wind up at the doorsteps of B&Bs, where they expect to be waited on hand-and-foot by staffers who they're treating like shit.

Eventually, Mrs. B&B Owner will look at Mr. B&B Owner and ask him, "why did we do this to ourselves?"

That, and too-heavy leverage, too-high interest, too little working capital...

Someone, someday, is going to get the bright idea to open a chain of "country inns." It worked for fast-food hamburgers, hardware stores, grocers and every OTHER business that used to be exclusively owned by one-store businessmen.

[Missy Vixen]

19. I love your posts

The things you write are ohhh, so true. My story, though, involves an owner of a B&B who was a real asshole. It was Strike One of three, and we don't stay in B&B's anymore.

We went to a lovely B&B many years ago in Leavenworth, WA. It was DH's birthday, so we wanted to do something special. Things at the inn were just great until a very drunk couple showed up for their weekend stay. The innkeeper kept pouring them drinks. There are host laws in Washington state. The couple finally decided they wanted something to eat, so the innkeeper advised them to drive themselves into town (!) and have dinner at one of the restaurants there. The other guests that weekend were clustered around a roaring fire with a glass of wine or two, enjoying each other's company.

DH offered to drive them. The innkeeper couldn't be bothered. My husband dropped them off at the restaurant of their choice and gave them the number of the inn if they couldn't get back. They called half an hour later. Nobody in town would let them have dinner in their place because they were already drunk. The innkeeper said he wouldn't go and get them, and I finally spoke up. I told him that if he didn't go and get the couple, we would be checking out immediately, and we would dispute his charge on our credit card.

He finally was shamed (by several other guests as well,) into picking the couple up.

Julie

[hfojvt]

11. title is kinda opposite of advertised

since they are perhaps "the other 5%" rather than the other half. Jacob Riis' "How the other half lives" was about the lives of poor people what Michael Harrington called "The Other America".

[JohMunich99]

14. Good insight

But sadly the headliners just go for whatever will get people to read on. Or my favorite in sports magainzes it's a way to look "clever". I can't tell you how many articles I've read where the headline has been Iceman Cometh or a play on that title.

[question everything]

16. Did not realize that I plagiarized someone else's title

when we were students we would sometimes ogle the nice things in the malls - that we could never afforded then - and we referred to these trips as "seeing how the other half lives."

Gave us the incentive to hope that some day we would graduate and be able to afford them. Well, not exactly.

[elehhhhna]

15. mpunt misery! is how he commands Mrs. Rummy to "come aboard".

EUWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW