yours2share - sharing stuff & collaborative consumption » Monday to Friday

Monday to Friday OR Friday to Monday

sophie — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:24:53 +0000

Over the last five years there has been an increase in tenants letting accommodation on a Monday to Friday basis. Usually these are people who work away from home and had become fed up with living in hotels or bed and breakfasts all week.

There are some major advantages for Monday to Friday landlords compared with full-time tenants:

Use of the room at weekends
Lodger tends to bring a lot less stuff – just what they need for the weekend
Their house isn’t the lodger’s permanent residence.

Some people working away from home have made a long term commitment to this way of life and buy a small apartment in which to live during the week.

Have any of these people considered letting their accommodation at the weekends when they aren’t there? One recent ad on yours2share is looking for somewhere more “permanent” to stay at weekends only. The advertiser lives in Manchester, but his girlfriend lives in Sheffield and he wants a base in Sheffield for the weekends.

Many people regularly visit a place at weekends, staying in hotels, B&Bs, even friends’ sofas. There are two main reasons:

visiting children living with an ex
visiting elderly relatives

But visiting sweethearts is equally valid. So is simply having a second home – for fun! When I moved to Norfolk, a rural county in England about two hours north east of London, I soon found that one place in which many Norfolk people wanted to own a second home was London (interestingly many of them have second homes on their own coast). I personally would be very interested in having a base in London that I could use at weekends, but I was surprised to find that I was not on my own.

If these situations are so common, why aren’t more people sharing? I think it is simply because there are no services other to yours2share that can accommodate this and it isn’t a well known service, so it doesn’t occur to people to ask.

Another way of sharing the big stuff

sophie — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:36:37 +0000

I’ve just posted another entry “Another way of sharing the big stuff“ on the Shareable website, a follow on from a piece I wrote last month called “How to share the big stuff“

Sharing in action

sophie — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:26:13 +0000

Do you share a house, car, motorhome, boat, aircraft dog, horse or anything else? I’m always looking for examples of sharing in action to blog about on yours2share and, if they are really good and two or more partners are willing to be interviewed, for case studies. If you are happy to tell me about your experiences, good or bad, I’ll blog about you and include a link to your website.

Examples could be straightforward: you own a quarter of a boat, a fifth of a light aircraft, half a motorhome. Or maybe your daughter goes to someone’s house to practice on their piano, or you swim in someone’s pool for an hour once a week. Maybe you rent a room from Monday to Friday because you are working away from home, or you’ve found someone to ride your horse on Tuesday and Thursday in return for some mucking out. It could be that you’ve found someone to help sort out the vegetable patch you’ve neglected for years, so you get a quarter of the produce, or you’ve found someone who is happy to look after a dog during the week when you are at work, so your children can now have the dog they have been pestering you for.

There are so many ways of sharing: nearly everyone does it they just don’t realise it. And they could do so much more.

Contact me here, or via my twitter account.

Monday to Friday rents

sophie — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:28:22 +0000

At yours2share, we have lots of people using us to let and find weekday lodgings. I had an interesting question sent in through the comments last week and thought I’d post the question and answer here, as I get so many (what do I charge?” questions.

Question If a lodger has been quoted a weekly Monday to Friday rent and then decides occasionally to stay away for a couple of days during the week but wants to leave his stuff in the room when he isn’t there, should he be given a reduction for that weeks rent?

My reply: There is no hard and fast rule over things like this, it depends upon you and your lodger.

I wouldn’t assume a reduction if I was the lodger, as you can’t let or use the room with his stuff there.

However if this means that the arrangement is even more advantageous to you in that you are sharing your house less, and there is less heat, light, maybe food etc used, it may be in your interest to negotiate a small reduction. It also depends whether this is a permanent arrangement – and for how much of the time. So if the agreement was £xx for four nights, and now he will only ever be there 2 nights for the foreseeable future, you might choose to reduce a little. However if you really need all of £xx and would prefer to find another lodger to ensure that you get this, and it makes no difference to you that they are there 4 nights instead of 2, then explain this is why you can’t reduce it. If the number of nights away each week varies, I don’t think I’d accept a reduction as it is only fair that you know what your income will be.

Here is more guidance on Monday to Friday rentals.