1 Photo
A new service allows homeowners to rent out their pools by the hour.
From the initial installation to ongoing maintenance and seasonal openings and closings, the costs of owning a swimming pool stack up. But a new service helps pool owners defray those expenses and even profit off their backyard paradise.
Swimply, which expanded to the East End this summer, allows pool owners to list their pools for rent, just like Airbnb and Vrbo allows homeowners to list their homes for short-term rentals. However, Swimply rentals are by the hour, and homeowners don’t have to give up their beds for the night or worry about securing rental permits. And Swimply is now expanding its service to include tennis courts, home gyms, home recording studios, big backyards and other spaces.
From Westhampton to East Hampton, pools are on offer with base prices that range from $70 to $100 an hour for small groups, and prices go up from there for extra guests. Many pool owners offer instant bookings and a number of amenities, such as access to Wi-Fi, pool toys and grills. Nationally, Swimply hosts offer add-ons like towels, watermelon and champagne or experiences like a sunset picnic, for an upcharge.
In an interview last week, Swimply founder and CEO Bunim Laskin explained how the business came to be, how it’s grown and the plans for the future.
“We have 25,000 listings in over 100 cities right now,” Laskin said.
Swimply is now based in Los Angeles, but got its start in Laskin’s hometown of Lakewood, New Jersey. The company formally launched in 2019, but he conceived of the idea a year earlier.
Laskin said that he was 21, and his mother just had her 12th child. He is the oldest sibling.
“She demanded that I’d be home and help out with the family,” he said. “And so all 12 of us were pretty much just cooped up in the house. We never really had the means to travel or go to camp.”
Their neighbor had built a pool that she barely used, but was very protective of, he recalled. “We offered her just some cash in exchange for using it whenever she wasn’t using it,” he said. “Within two weeks, five other families were doing the same thing to the point that she was making more money than she was spending on it.”
He went on Google Earth and found other area swimming pools that summer. “I got four of them to agree to be on my phone, on my hotline,” he said. He advertised his number around town, facilitated rentals between callers and pool owners, and delivered the owners checks biweekly.
“That exploded really quickly, so I decided to just drop out of school, raise some money and then launched Swimply,” Laskin said.
He had been studying Talmudic law in Israel before changing his life path. He went on to raise $1.2 million in investments to get Swimply off the ground in 2019. In 2020, amid pandemic restrictions on travel and activities, the business grew by 4,000 percent, with just two full-time employees.
“We had a lot of owners that signed up really quickly because they needed the revenue. It was a good way to make easy revenue when needed most. And people needed a safe place to gather,” Laskin said. “Swimply was one of the things that were still open during the pandemic and so people were able to get together and gather there.”
A $10 million funding round followed in January 2021, led by growth equity investment firm Norwest Venture Partners, which helped Spotify and Uber grow. Swimply then launched an app and expanded its team to 75 with a Hollywood Hills office.
The team includes engineers, designers and developers, plus concierges who work directly with the pool owners.
“We have a team of white-glove pool partners who will help you run your business and help you with pricing and photography and give you advice,” Laskin said. “It’s completely up to pool owners what they want to charge, how many guests they want to allow, all the amenities that you want to offer. It’s totally up to them. So we have people that partner up with you to make those decisions and help you with any questions you have.”
Pool owners can decide if they want to allow children, pets, alcohol or music. “You’re in full control,” Laskin said.
Owners can also reject bookings for activities that they don’t want their pool used for, such as commercial photo and video shoots.
The average booking size nationally is four guests, while the average booking in the Hamptons is for eight, he said. The average booking length is two hours.
New York was the first state that Swimply went statewide in as its service range expanded.
“The Hamptons is actually really cool. It’s one of our cooler markets,” he said.
He explained that while most rentals are for family activities and health purposes, in the Hamptons, rentals are more often for high-end, luxurious experiences.
“People spend like two, three times more in the Hamptons to rent the listings there, and then we also see a lot of events in the Hamptons — a lot of like cool parties and stuff like that,” he said.
In Miami and Los Angeles, many bookings are parties for younger people, while in the Hamptons bookings are often for corporate events, private swims and expensive dates, he said.
Homeowners are protected if something goes wrong while their pool is being rented. Swimply offers liability insurance of $1 million, and up to $10,000 in property damage coverage, Laskin said.
“We didn’t really reinvent the wheel here,” he said. “We do what Airbnb does and what other companies do.” And users must sign waivers prior to their first booking, he added.
Swimply also offers an online portal where neighbors can report any disruptions pool rentals are causing. If owners are found to have violated Swimply’s “good neighbor standards,” they will be deactivated until the neighbor confirms a conversation has been had with the owner.
Laskin pointed out that Swimply’s service is a brand new consumer behavior and yet to be regulated.
“With Airbnb, it was gray area,” he said. “With us, it’s even grayer area. We’re in talks with a lot of different regulators right now about how to regulate Swimply and how to ensure that it’s safe across the board, but we’re doing a lot of proactive measures on our own, regardless of that.”
Swimply plans to add boat rentals to its offerings soon — but not for sailing or speeding around the harbor. The idea is to allow groups to rent docked boats to hang out on.
