In 2014, Ivan Ellis Nanney from Idaho did something different. He took a job in marketing and traveled around the country with giant concrete and gypsum potatoes.
On the famous Idaho Potato Tour, you can have your picture taken with giant potatoes being carted across the United States in the back of a red semi-truck. While on tour, Nannie met a fellow Boiseen named Christy Wolfe. He turned the original six-ton potato into an Airbnb property.
As their friendship grew, Nanny helped her set up more listings. gave He bought a piece of land outside downtown Boise with his $17,000, and he also spent $17,000 to build a small house on the land, he says.
After college, Nanny worked in marketing and traveled around the country on the famous Idaho Potato Tour. The original man-made six-ton potato is also now an Airbnb property.
Ivan Ellis Nanny
He listed on Airbnb in June 2019 and plans to live on his own for six months a year. However, by mid-2020 it was so popular that Nanny decided to list it for the whole year and look for other accommodation in Boise.
This year, the tiny house brought in $49,600 in revenue and counting, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
“It became very popular,” says Nanny, 34. “It made no sense for me to stay there. [The income] I became almost completely passive. ”
Income finances most of Nanny’s trips, including an annual trip to Sri Lanka, where she organizes tuk-tuk tournaments to make money. He’s also making enough money that he’s working on building two rental properties, he says.
This is how the little house was put together.
home of nomads
After graduating from Boise State University, Nanny vlogged about her travels abroad for nearly three years before returning to the United States. Famous Idaho Potato Tours. The job saved him a good amount of money, and in late 2015, he used $17,000, a combination of “potato money” and income from freelance gigs, to buy his own land. Did.
Nannie says she spent a total of $34,000 buying the land, demolishing the building, and building a small house.
Ivan Ellis Nanny
He spent the next three-and-a-half years spending another $17,000 to demolish an abandoned building on the site, build a tiny house entirely out of “second-hand materials,” and install electricity and running water himself, he said. increase.
Nanney adds that the funding came from various freelance video jobs, including a six-month stint as an experience content creator at Cancun.com in 2018.
Given how much he wanted to travel, it made no sense to live in a small house full-time. had just experienced a home foreclosure at the time, he says.
“Given the small house and cost, having a home base makes sense,” Nanny says. “It provided a backup plan for my family and provided that passive income to free me up to pursue my passions and work on other projects and not be tied down to a mortgage. ”
The success of the tiny house has led Nanney to buy two more Airbnb properties, he says. Neither are listed and haven’t made any money yet.
Ivan Ellis Nanny
Technically, income is not entirely passive. Nanney still takes a few days off a year to stay in this little house so she can repair or improve it.
He also works about two hours a week to arrange stays, and pays cleaners about $150 a week to manage the home while he’s away, depending on how many bookings.
Domestic politics and international affairs
The income from this tiny house makes up most of Nanny’s annual income, he says. More importantly, it showed him how to make money in a way that accommodated his globe-trotting lifestyle.
Since 2019, Nanny has spent at least two months a year in Sri Lanka hosting Amazing Race-style competitions in three-wheeled convertibles called tuk-tuks. Gig pays $5,000 or his 35% of the biggest tournament profits each year, whichever is higher.
Nanny spends two months a year in Sri Lanka hosting tuk-tuk tournaments and earning at least $5,000 a year.
Ivan Ellis Nanny
He also makes money helping other Airbnb hosts in the neighborhood maintain, repair, and add new buildings, including a shipwreck-themed listing near Salmon, Idaho.
The success of the tiny house prompted Nanney to develop two more Airbnb properties. The first is a $78,000 house in Grandview, Idaho (a small town about an hour south of Boise), purchased in April 2021 with a $7,800 down payment.
The second is a piece of land in the nearby mountains that I share with my family of four.their plan is to change the present pole barn to the cabin. After going public, Nanny will receive his quarter of the earnings, he said.
“You can maximize the assets you already own while increasing your income and reducing your debt,” he says. “I don’t like to leave things out when someone might be benefiting.”
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