Parent Housing Exchange Idea

My aunt belongs to the PEO organization that does this for it's members, for free.  It is optional to the members to open their houses to other members.

I would entertain this idea.  I live near 3 colleges that have teams.  8 if you want to drive an hour or so, which we did sometimes 5x a week. 

But I am the extrovert in my house.  My spouse may think otherwise

 Not an NCAA rules expert, but I would think it would not be an impermissible benefit since the hosting families are not associated with the visiting school (maybe alumni would be an issue)... but I think it would be cool

I think it's a great idea. Hate missing so much of my son's travel games, but flights combined with hotels is just beyond so many of us.

I like the idea. I wonder what % of parents live within a 3-4 hour drive of their child's college? I would guess it's a pretty high number, especially if you include D2/D3/NAIA/juco. Living in the MidAtlantic might skew my perception of that. You might want some way of allocating requests so that the same parents don't reserve the one available accommodation every home weekend of the season, just to give others a chance and to mix it up for the hosts.

Reminds me a little of https://www.warmshowers.org.

When our middle son was in college, we were asked multiple times by families in the area if we ever needed a place to stay when we came down.  We never took them up because it was a time for our son to be away from the college for the weekend and get away from the military life.  I never thought of whether it would be illegal but I would think as long as it was not done during recruiting it wouldn't be, but it is a similar to paying a parent while the child is in college.  Getting free room every weekend could definitely be considered a payout if you stayed at an alumni or booster's home or one provided by them.  Imagine the ways that could go if the parents were put up in a nice house every weekend and weekday and given a nice car to drive and steaks in the fridge and maybe spending money.  I understand the simplicity of it but I also can quickly go to the ruining of it by alumni or boosters.

I think the answer would be it would have to be non-alumni or boosters.  Maybe other parents who allow it or a reasonable fee paid.  Or some type of arrangement where you allow others to stay at your house and with that you get so many points to stay at someone else's house at a place near you.  Almost like a condo exchange program where you gain points for allowing people to stay at your house and then you use those points to stay at someone else's house.

I like the concept. Hotel costs will add up pretty quickly over four years of traveling to watch your child play. There are talks in our house that if our son decides on a school that is within driving distance that we may look into a purchasing a small used RV to drive it to weekend games and not have to pay for a hotel each time. Plus we can use it for vacations as well.

ARCEKU21 posted:

I like the concept. Hotel costs will add up pretty quickly over four years of traveling to watch your child play. There are talks in our house that if our son decides on a school that is within driving distance that we may look into a purchasing a small used RV to drive it to weekend games and not have to pay for a hotel each time. Plus we can use it for vacations as well.

We considered the RV as well, but there are limiting factors there for me: 1) I snore like a chainsaw and there would be no escaping it 2) My wife needs a break from me at some point during the day 3) Neither my wife or I are too keen on emptying the sh!tt3r!

collegebaseballrecruitingguide posted:

ARCEKU21 posted:

I like the concept. Hotel costs will add up pretty quickly over four years of traveling to watch your child play. There are talks in our house that if our son decides on a school that is within driving distance that we may look into a purchasing a small used RV to drive it to weekend games and not have to pay for a hotel each time. Plus we can use it for vacations as well.

We considered the RV as well, but there are limiting factors there for me: 1) I snore like a chainsaw and there would be no escaping it 2) My wife needs a break from me at some point during the day 3) Neither my wife or I are too keen on emptying the sh!tt3r!

 

Haha! Love it. I think those would all apply to us also.

PitchingFan posted:

When our middle son was in college, we were asked multiple times by families in the area if we ever needed a place to stay when we came down.  We never took them up because it was a time for our son to be away from the college for the weekend and get away from the military life.  I never thought of whether it would be illegal but I would think as long as it was not done during recruiting it wouldn't be, but it is a similar to paying a parent while the child is in college.  Getting free room every weekend could definitely be considered a payout if you stayed at an alumni or booster's home or one provided by them.  Imagine the ways that could go if the parents were put up in a nice house every weekend and weekday and given a nice car to drive and steaks in the fridge and maybe spending money.  I understand the simplicity of it but I also can quickly go to the ruining of it by alumni or boosters.

I think the answer would be it would have to be non-alumni or boosters.  Maybe other parents who allow it or a reasonable fee paid.  Or some type of arrangement where you allow others to stay at your house and with that you get so many points to stay at someone else's house at a place near you.  Almost like a condo exchange program where you gain points for allowing people to stay at your house and then you use those points to stay at someone else's house.

Good points, I was thinking about that as well. I like your concept of opting into a points system where if you share your place you get credits to use another participating member's lodging. 

Also possible, and I will have to talk to the lawyers on this one, is making it a "club" in which those who wish to host stay in exchange lodging would pay a modest subscription fee to avail themselves of the exchange and also to offset the cost of operating the exchange and liability insurance. Those who simply want to host I would want to allow to participate for free. By paying a modest fee to be a club member, you are technically not receiving anything for "free."

Just an idea of course, trying to "suss" out some things I had not thought of before.

Regarding the athlete staying there, I would probably explicitly prohibit that as that definitely would be looked at more harshly as a benefit for being an athlete. I would probably not do this for anyone expect immediate families of currently participating athletes. I know my son, who plays across the country from me, would rather be spending whatever downtime he has off the field on road trips completing coursework and being with his teammates. There will always be opportunities for families to get time with their athletes during road trips such as when they are free to go to meals with you. From the places my son's team plays this season on the road, a weekend of lodging is easily (on the budget-minded side) going to run $200+, and those with larger budgets obviously can spend much more...

Keep the comments coming, they are very useful.

FWIW, we run an AirBnB out of our house.  There is great value in that AirBnB covers things with a hefty insurance policy, they handle all payments, provide the back end system for reservations and availability, factor in applicable taxes (in many instances), etc.  We have looked at similar services for RV rental.  Those sites, too, have a fairly sophisticated web presence and back end capabilities.  I don't know specifics but these things are costly.  

I think the concept is a good one... just trying to present some likely cost outlays you would have to deal with.  I suppose it could be done on just a forum basis but there may be some significant liability issues to consider.  While we are talking about a tight community, we are also talking about (for the most part) strangers sleeping in people's houses.  Many things can happen accidentally and otherwise.

If you get this going, don't forget the HSBBweb discount

I don't think it is just the long away games.  We live 3 hours from our son but going to Knoxville or road trip every weekend is expensive.  Especially when you don't know if/when he will get to play one or both of us have to be there every weekend.  During the weekday games, we are blessed that they play every weekday game at home but it is still a 3 hour over and 3 hour back each week.  I will do it every week but everyone won't.

cabbagedad posted:

FWIW, we run an AirBnB out of our house.  There is great value in that AirBnB covers things with a hefty insurance policy, they handle all payments, provide the back end system for reservations and availability, factor in applicable taxes (in many instances), etc.  We have looked at similar services for RV rental.  Those sites, too, have a fairly sophisticated web presence and back end capabilities.  I don't know specifics but these things are costly.  

I think the concept is a good one... just trying to present some likely cost outlays you would have to deal with.  I suppose it could be done on just a forum basis but there may be some significant liability issues to consider.  While we are talking about a tight community, we are also talking about (for the most part) strangers sleeping in people's houses.  Many things can happen accidentally and otherwise.

Agree with you, Cabbagedad, my first thought was liability to the hosts and guests. That is why I believe making it a "membership club" would help in that regard as the membership fees would go to offset liability insurance costs protecting both hosts and guests. Regarding the back-end of the platform, I have that covered already as I was a computer programmer in another life...lots of caffeine, pizza and all nighters in my history. 

You are only a stranger once...then you are acquaintances.

Concept still in infancy, however I imagine that homeowners would be there during the stays, so not so much leaving the dwelling wholesale to strangers. I think if the model works for companies like Air BnB, VRBO etc, then everything can be figured out/addressed and reasonable safeguards put in place for hosts/guests and exchange owners.

While the average distance from home for first-year freshmen baseball athletes is about 200 miles, that is an average and there are many who exceed that average. Also, other sports have much greater average distances. While we are all "baseball people," the concept would apply to a much larger pool of athlete families in different sports, thereby increasing the potential number of host participants who make lodging available. I quickly came up with the number of 600K athletes competing at the college level (NCAA, NAIA, JUCO). That's a pretty prime pool of potential hosts to populate the exchange with lodging.