It is natural that superfan want to have a piece of movie and TV history – from Walter White’s house in Breaking Bad to Aragorn Sword in The Lord of the Rings. But two twilight lovers won the top prize by buying Bella Swan’s house, from the popular vampire franchise movie where Kristen Stewart played Bella.
“I had visited all the places of filming,” says Amber Neufeld, owner of the house along with her husband Dean to Fortune. “When the house appeared in the market, I thought, ‘My God, I know this house.’”
The couple bought the house in St. Helens, Oregon, in 2018 for $ 360,000. It was sold for $ 10,000 above the requested amount after a dispute with two other potential buyers.
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After renovating some worn areas of the house and making a soft release in early 2019, it was ready for rent, with daily rates around $ 400. It took a year for the business to take off, but now the property constantly “knocking” the Airbnb website, with reservations for a whole year running out in minutes on the neufeld personal site.
The iconic Casa Swan of the “Twilight” franchise, which has earned $ 3 billion in the cinema and started as a series of books by Stephenie Meyer, now generates up to $ 140,000 in gross annual revenue – and Amber manages full -time property.
The prospect of renting a famous movie house could lead some to charge high prices to profit a lot, but Neufeld say they are not interested in major profits: the most rewarding part of owning the house is to allow the “twilight” superfan to enter Bella’s world, even for one night.
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Also, Amber would not support someone else’s idea to buy the house and take off its original character. “What if anyone changes the house and we lose this story of filming?” says Amber. “I just wanted to save it.”
Buying Casa Swan
When the 43 -year -old Neufeld knew that the five -bedroom Swan was for sale, they took the opportunity – even if it was just to take a look inside. Amber admits that he was excited during the visit. “I tried to control myself so that my broker didn’t think I was a crazy person,” he remembers.
The couple made an offer immediately, having enough money on the company’s actions to enter any time. There were two other offers on the table. But they closed the purchase for $ 360,000, offering $ 10,000 above the requested price.
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Then came the reforms to make the house as faithful as possible to the movie. Fortunately, the entire original floor, the accessories and the exterior were intact since filming. But the house still needed care, so Dean reconciled his work full time with the renovation: preaching boards, fixing taps and leakage water heaters.
Meanwhile, Amber was looking for original movie furniture or the scenery replicas, such as a ship model, table and dining room chairs. The reforms and items cost about $ 20,000 in total.
“I worked from nine to five, and then went to the house, staying there from five to bedtime just fixing things,” says Dean. “We get financially tight. We paid two mortgages, two water bills, light, these things.”
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Success at Airbnb
Although the Neufeld have bound at the beginning to put the Swan house in operation, it has not been worrying about financing for years.
The couple made a soft release of the house in January 2019, opening the ad to the public a month later. They had to fight to gain followers on Facebook, with reservations coming irregularly.
But everything took off about a year later thanks to the viralization at Tiktok. A creator made a video of his stay at the house, humorously recreating a scene in the window of Bella’s room. Their 1.5 million viewers came to know that they could also rent the house.
“Life was never the same,” explains Dean. “Our reserves were filled as soon as they opened, and never slowed down.”
The Neufeld started renting the house through Airbnb – but the site could not stand the intense traffic. Since then, they have been managing the reservations by the site itself, which are open quarterly and run out in three to ten minutes for reserves up to one year in advance.
The couple says that success came in the perfect storm of a resurgence of “twilight”; The series finally hit streaming services, and midnight book was added to the series. This meant that the teenagers’ children of parents who went to the premieres of “twilight” 17 years ago were now addicted to the series and reserving the house.
“All readers of ‘Twilight’ now had adult money,” says Amber. “What happened, surprisingly, was that it was the teenagers – the second generation – who were also entering.”
Neufeld now earns $ 140,000 in gross revenue with Casa Swan in good years, most of them going to costs and improvements. They refuse to increase prices along with high demand, and an advantage of keeping prices low is that they can reduce their tax burden. In addition, it is said that profit, which can reach $ 60,000 per year, covers mortgages and fees, leaving money for them and new improvements.
“We don’t really want to charge anymore,” says Amber. “It’s not just ‘how can we make more money?’ Has always been ‘how much can we charge and still invest in the house and pay the mortgage?’ ”
This story was originally published on Fortune.com
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