'I make £85,000 a year renting out my swimming pool - it's our main income'

A man says he earns a whopping £85,000 a year by renting out the swimming pool at his home. Steve Crum, 65, was struggling with the expensive upkeep of his large Victorian family home, which came with a pool in the garden.

At first he looked into replacing it with an Airbnb, but when he was quoted with £20,000 for the work, he decided to advertise the pool for use on a local Facebook group. Now, the pool outside his home in Warrington, Cheshire, is fully booked from 8am to 9pm all year round.

Steve charges £25 for a private 90 minutes session for one person, and £56 for a group of eight. He says the pool is a hit with people who don't like to swim in public.

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Steve, who previously worked in IT, said: "It was maybe used to be used once a week before. It cost £500 to heat a month and it was wasted. Three years ago we had an old house with no one in it. It was very expensive to run."

The dad thought about replacing it with two more bedrooms so he could Airbnb part of the house. But instead, he decided to make use of what he had and put an advert on his local Facebook group to open up his pool in August 2021.

"I thought 'hang on we have a swimming pool, what about renting the pool out?," Steve said. "I didn't have any expectations."

In the first few years Steve made £40k to £50k, but now makes £85k a year. "The swimming pool is busy from 8am to 9pm. It's our main income. It's a joy to see people coming and going. It's unbelievable," he said.

Steve finds people come to his pool who can't or don't want to go to a public pool for body conscious reasons. He also has lots of special needs groups who are able to swim in the private environment.

Steve's sons Nick, 39, a film producer, and Dave Crum, 37, a financial adviser, launched Swimple - an app to help others do the same last year. They now have six active pools listed.

Nick said: "It's very rewarding for many reasons. It's a different swimming experience. Everyone gets to have a little bit of luxury. It's usually something you only get on holiday. There is less and less access to swimming. We're trying to combat that."

Steve added: "When I started it just thought about the money. I had no idea what lovely people you get. It's really rewarding. People get so much out of the swimming pool.

"We want to get more people swimming. We want to get more access to pools around the UK. Pools are cost sucking. They have a tendency to de-value properties."