How Sandra’s swimming pool makes her up to $10,000 a year

With summer in full swing, the sound of water splashing in Sandra Read’s backyard pool is commonplace. But the people swimming there are strangers.

Read lives on an expansive property with her 18-year-old son, her parents and her brother. She hires out her in-ground saltwater pool, which is more than 50 metres from the house in a private setting, on the platform Swimply.

“Parties, family gatherings, birthdays, weddings, school groups … [People use the pool for] everything,” said Read, from Dural in Sydney’s Hills District.

Swimply, which launched in Australia in 2019, lets hosts list their pools for approved guests to hire. Read first heard about the platform on her Facebook feed and thought, “what a great idea”.

Said Swimply Australia general manager Caroline Lepron: “Hosts create a listing, upload photos, set their hourly rate and house rules, and choose whether they want instant or request-based bookings,.

“Swimply handles the payments, support and payout processing. Hosts decide when their pool is available and can block out times when they’re using it; it’s completely flexible.”

Charging $50 an hour for the first five people, then $7 a person per hour after that, Read said that depending on the weather, her family could pocket up to $10,000 a year from hiring out the pool.

“Most people come for two to three hours,” Read said.

“Ninety per cent of bookings are between October and March. It’s there during winter but it really takes off in hot, dry weather. We hire it all year round but that is the rhythm.”

Read said she had one-off bookings but that she also had guests who hired the pool regularly.

“I’ve had an early morning guy who booked for one hour every day,” she said, adding that a group of women who wear hijabs, “looking for a safe, private space to swim”, also use the pool.

Lepron said Australians hired someone else’s backyard pool if they didn’t have one of their own.

“A large share of bookings come from families or groups who don’t have a pool at home and are simply looking for somewhere clean, safe and uncrowded, especially during hot Australian summers when public pools become packed,” she said.

“Swimply has grown rapidly worldwide between the US, Canada and Australia. In 2025, we have over 15,000 verified pool hosts, more than double the previous year.”

Swimply offers hosts $1 million in liability protection if a guest is injured during a reservation and a claim or lawsuit is made against the host for bodily injury. Hosts are also eligible for up to $10,000 if their pool or property is damaged during a reservation and the guest is unwilling or unable to pay for the damage.

The demand for pool bookings is in part because some Australians are looking for smaller living spaces amid ever more expensive housing.

The Housing Industry Association, in a February note citing data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, said the average size of Australian dwellings had been on a steady, though modest, decline over the past 15 years.

In Melbourne, for example, a 10-year analysis of lot sales in the city’s outer-suburban growth corridors shows the median block size has shrunk by just over 20 per cent, from 441 square metres in 2015 to 352 in 2025.

In addition to pools, Australians are using other platforms to find spaces to hire.

One of them is Peerspace, a marketplace that connects space owners with people seeking unique venues. This includes houses, apartments, rooftops, backyards, pools, gardens and rooms.

“Hosts create a listing with photos, descriptions, amenities and pricing and they manage their availability and bookings directly,” said Peerspace founder and chief strategy officer Rony Chammas.

“Once a reservation is confirmed, they simply prepare the space and get paid through the platform after the event. On the guest side, renters browse event spaces by location, type, capacity and budget to find a venue that fits their needs.”

In Australia, Chammas said homes with standout outdoor areas were especially popular for photo shoots. Studios and unique venues in Sydney often hosted birthday parties and events.

“Residences of all kinds are frequently booked for film and content production,” he said.

As with Swimply, pricing and profit margins vary.

“The average booking in Sydney and Melbourne is about $650 but earnings vary widely because hosts set their own hourly rates, minimum booking hours and availability,” Chammas said.

Money is a primary motivator for home owners to hire out their spaces, amenities or entire properties. But Read said there could occasionally be downsides.

“I had one 16th birthday where people tried to stay too late and left rubbish. This prompted me to invest in cameras,” she said.

Since doing this, Read said there had been no problems, and overwhelmingly her experiences had been positive.

“It’s great to hear happy noises from the pool again,” she said. “Our kids have grown up and don’t use it so much, and it gives my retired mum a little bit of cash to play with and helps us maintain the pool and the grounds.”

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