‘Twilight’ superfans purchased Bella Swan’s home for $360,000—now they’re making $140,000 a 12 months renting out the last word collector’s merchandise

“I had come up and visited all of the filming places,” Amber Neufeld, proprietor of the home along with her husband Dean, tells Fortune. “When the home popped up in the marketplace, I used to be like ‘Oh my gosh, I do know that home.’”

Courtesy of Amber and Dean Neufeld

The couple purchased the home in St. Helen’s, Ore., again in 2018 for $360,000. It bought for $10,000 over the asking worth on the finish of a bidding shuffle with two different potential consumers. After fixing up some worse-for-wear areas of the home and delicate launching firstly of 2019, it was prepared for hire, with nightly charges round $400. It took a 12 months for issues to take off; however now the property has constantly crashed the Airbnb website, with bookings for a 12 months upfront promoting out inside minutes on Neufelds’ private web site. 

The long-lasting Swan home from the $3 billion Twilight franchise, which started as a sequence of novels, now brings in as much as $140,000 yearly—and Amber manages the property as a full-time job. The prospect of renting out a movie-famous dwelling may entice some to upcharge and make a reasonably penny, however the Neufelds say they’re not all for making an enormous revenue. Essentially the most fulfilling a part of proudly owning the home is letting Twilight superfans step into Bella’s world, even when just for an evening. Plus, she couldn’t bear the considered another person shopping for the home, and it being stripped of its character. 

“What if someone adjustments it, and we lose that filming historical past?” Amber says. “I simply wished to put it aside.”

Courtesy of Amber and Dean Neufeld

Snagging the Swan home off the marketplace for $360,000

When the Neufelds, who’re each 43 years outdated, first caught wind of the five-bedroom Swan home being in the marketplace, they jumped on the alternative—even when that solely meant getting an opportunity to look inside the home. Amber admits she fangirled in the course of the tour. 

“I’m attempting to maintain it in test so my realtor doesn’t assume I’m only a loopy particular person,” she recollects. 

The couple made a proposal instantly, having sufficient cash tied to firm inventory to afford a downpayment at any time. There have been two different provides on the desk. However they lastly locked down the home for $360,000 by going $10,000 over asking worth, being Twilight followers themselves, providing the largest down fee, and submitting a constructive letter from their realtor.

Subsequent got here renovations, and making the Twilight home as movie-accurate as doable. Fortunately, the entire unique flooring, fixtures, and exterior had been untouched from the filming days. However the Swan dwelling nonetheless wanted some TLC, so Dean balanced his full-time job with refurbishing the home: hammering floorboard nails, patching leaky taps, and fixing leaky water heaters. In the meantime, Amber scoured the web for the unique film furnishings or replicas of the set, like a mannequin ship in Bella’s home, and the eating room desk and chairs. The repairs and gadgets price about $20,000 in complete. 

Courtesy of Amber and Dean Neufeld

“I might go work my nine-to-five, after which I’d go to the home and be there from 5 till bedtime simply fixing stuff,” Dean says. “​​We really ran ourselves financially tight. We’re paying two mortgages, paying two water payments, energy payments, all that enjoyable stuff.”

Crashing Airbnb and making as much as $140,000 yearly 

Whereas the Neufelds had been consuming a ton of prices on the onset of getting the Swan home up and operating, it’s been years since they’ve needed to fear about financing it.

The entrepreneurial couple first did a soft-launch of the Twilight home in January 2019, opening the itemizing to the general public one month later. They needed to combat to realize a following on Fb, with bookings trickling in irregularly. However all the pieces took off round a 12 months later because of TikTok virality. A creator made a video of her keep in the home, humorously recreating a scene at Bella’s bed room window. The 1.5 million viewers immediately knew they may hire the home, too. 

“Life was by no means the identical,” Dean explains. “Our bookings had been stuffed the second they had been open, and it’s by no means slowed down ever since.”

The Neufelds started by renting out the home on Airbnb—however the web site couldn’t deal with the intense on-line visitors. They’ve since switched to dealing with bookings via their very own web site, which go up quarterly and promote out inside three to 10 minutes for reservations as much as a 12 months upfront. 

The couple says the large success got here in the course of the excellent storm of a Twilight resurgence; the sequence lastly hit streaming providers, and the guide Midnight Solar was added to the sequence. That meant the teenager children of oldsters who went to Twilight midnight premieres 17 years in the past had been now hooked on the sequence and reserving out the home. 

“All of the Twilight readers had been now sufficiently old to have massive boy cash,” Amber says. “What really occurred, surprisingly typically, was it was the youngsters—the second era—stepping into Twilight too.”

Courtesy of Amber and Dean Neufeld

The Neufelds now make $140,000 in income from the Swan home throughout good years, with a majority rolling into overhead and enhancements. They’ve refused to lift costs in tandem with the excessive demand, and a perk of holding the costs decrease is that they’ll mitigate their very own tax burden. Plus, they are saying it makes sufficient—drawing earnings upwards of $60,000 yearly—to cowl the mortgages and costs, with cash left over for themselves and new enhancements. 

“We don’t actually need to cost extra,” Amber says. “It’s not simply, ‘How can we take advantage of cash?’ It’s actually all the time been, ‘How a lot can we cost and nonetheless put a refund into the home and pay the mortgage?’”