Rental rates are dependent on several factors. The local rental market will set the price range for your area, and you can expect that treehouse will earn a premium because of how rare and exciting they are.

The size, occupancy, and how luxurious the treehouse is will also determine whether your treehouse rents toward the high or low end of the range.

Lastly, the way you market your treehouse matters a lot, so don’t skimp on excellent photography and video, and get a lot of great reviews and mentions online.

See some of the rental listings from our clients’ projects to give you an idea.

Zoning for rental treehouses will either fit in residential or commercial.

The residential zonings may allow a certain number of units as an add on to your home (typically 1-5 rental units), or else they may require only 1 unit per lot, forcing you to subdivide and treat your project as a normal home development.

The commercial zonings that allow it will be similar to hotel/motel zoning, or else campgrounds, or resort zoning.

Before purchasing land, walk into the building/zoning office, and ask whether your goals will be allowable or not, and if any conditions apply.

In over 90% of situations, you will need to treat a rental treehouse like a real construction project and get engineered plans, file building permits, get inspections, and play by the rules. This will take at least 3-6 months to get ready to build.

Most projects will take at least a couple of months in construction to allow time for all phases and trades to complete their work in sequence. So from the day you contact us and decide to proceed, you should probably plan for the whole process to take 6-12 months before you will be ready to rent the treehouse to your first guests.

It takes a lot of effort while learning to develop property. However, if you have that experience already, then it’s not too different from building cabins or a campground.

We will help you with the treehouse specific aspects of your development. We can advise on a plan that will protect trees from construction activity, which trees are safe to use, and how to nestle the design into the trees enough to make it feel like a treehouse, but keep it separate enough to make it easier to maintain.

You need to develop a master plan, divide it up into stages that you can afford to build in chunks, and then design & build the rental units. Don’t forget that you also need a marketing plan and to save budget for operating activities and all of the little things that guests expect these days.

Retiring on your treehouse rentals is definitely possible and we’re helping people do it, but it’s also not as cheap & easy as you might think, especially for those not already in real estate.

Yes, but it is not easy and you will need significant downpayment.

The first step is buying the land, and you should plan to buy the land in cash or with at least 30% downpayment.

After that, you will need a construction loan, which can be arranged if you have additional downpayment and suitable credit and income limits. Expect downpayment amounts to be higher because banks will not understand what you are doing and don’t have suitable comps for treehouses in your area. Do not be discouraged if interest rates are higher for this project. However, when construction is completed, you have your use & occupancy permit, and you start renting the treehouse, you can often find it easier to refinance the treehouse at normal interest rates. From the bank’s perspective, their risk drops after construction is complete.

Many people start out too big. We’ll be happy to build you a 4000 square foot, 13 story treehouse if you want, but the price tag is going to probably shock you. Not to mention, it will dwarf the surrounding trees and look out of place.

Most small rentals look better and provide better ROI. A good target is about 500-800 square feet of interior space to rent to couples or small families, and jumping up to 1000-1400 square feet for extended family sized rentals. Exterior deck space is always a good idea and is not included in suggestions above.

Our tree houses are safe because we use strong materials and professional tree attachment methods that allow for tree movement and tree growth over time. Where prudent, we may also install backup support systems in critical places. Expert consulting arborists, engineers, challenge course professionals, fabricators, carpenters, and builders have helped us refine and improve our support systems and tree house construction practices over the years.

Our tree houses are as safe as a comparable deck, balcony, or cabin on the ground. We do, however, recommend that tree houses not be occupied when strong gusts of wind or lighting are possible.

Our Tree Houses have an average life span of 10-25 years, but can be made to last as long as the life of the tree. The materials we use are of the best quality and our methods of construction make for long-term use. As with any outdoor product, regular inspection and maintenance is imperative to prolong its life, and life expectancy would therefore depend to a great extent on the attention given to it.

SAFETY IS OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. For example, tree house railings are strong and substantial, high enough and close enough to protect small children.

We have children too, and so our tree house construction methods are influenced by watching our kids play in our tree houses.

• We avoid placement of nails where they may loosen over time and create hazards.
• We sand down any rough edges on the tree house to eliminate potential splinters.
• Tree house entrance ladders are situated where they will be easiest to climb, keeping potential falls to a minimum height.
• We can use Plexiglas for windows or even plan to have operating windows situated over verandas or balconies to keep kids from jumping out.

We help you determine the appropriate safety measures that make you feel comfortable. In fact, if you have any safety related tree house questions or concerns, we will be happy to have an honest discussion of safety and risk on play structures and tree houses. In many cases, building codes are not applicable to tree houses because permits may not be required. However, due to our previous experience in the ground house building industry, we know how to build our tree houses so they are code compliant.

Many nostalgic tree house features such as rope ladders or natural branch railings would not pass code on a ground house. Most of our tree house options such as zip lines or rope swings aren't mentioned in the building code books either. So we will explain the codes to you, and then let you choose how you want your tree house built. We want you to know what the codes would be and why they would be that way so that you can weigh your aesthetic preferences against what the code books consider to be safe. We consider that informing you of those issues our duty as professional tree house builders.

We carry insurance that specifically names tree house building as the primary business activity. This is very expensive and hard to get at any price. If you consider another tree house builder for your project, make sure that they are not carrying a tree worker's or general carpenter's policy and telling you that they are fully insured for tree house construction. If their insurance company finds out that they primarily build tree houses, then you will not be protected.

We stand behind the quality of our work. If it is later discovered that in any part of a tree house project, we performed work in a sub-standard or un-workman-like manner, then we will attempt to fix the problem. Either we will come out and bring the tree house up to high quality standards, or we will make other arrangements that keep everyone as happy as possible. That being said, if the tree house is damaged through normal use, normal weathering, pests such as squirrels or bugs, or an act of nature or act of god, then it will not be our responsibility to make repairs free of charge. Sometimes the difference can be blurry with tree houses because of the movement and interconnection with nature. So there is no hard line, but we do promise to try reasonably hard to keep you happy and do what we honestly believe is right to keep our integrity and commercial standards of honor.

We've seen great and terrible treehouses built by both types of people. Some welders and engineers and other related professionals also have mixed treehouse building reviews. To be successful, our team has developed core competencies in all of these areas. We focus primarily on building and construction management, but without neglecting the importance of each area. The first 10% of the time spent on a treehouse is determining whether or not the tree is suitable to carry the load of the treehouse, where the best attachment points are, what the overall health of the tree is, and installing the main fasteners.

While Dan Wright is an ISA certified arborist, it's not a bad idea to also hire an RCA certified consulting arborist with at least 20 years of experience as a professional arborist to consult on a treehouse project. RCA arborists have a higher level of knowledge and a local one will have more insight into how your particular tree species does in your area, a point not to be overlooked since Dan is mostly familiar with trees in Pennsylvania and surrounding states.

Carpentry and building skills comprise the majority of the treehouse project and must be carefully employed to ensure safety. You want to hire people who you can trust to choose proper fasteners for each part of the tree house, form tight joints, build sturdy walls and railings to keep people safe, and close in roofs and windows to keep the weather out. At Tree Top Builders, we cross train our staff in various fields so that each member of the treehouse team understands the whole process.

We also have a network of expert tree house builders and consultants (including other arborists, engineers, machinists and metal workers) who understand the tree house building process and their important roles in each tree house project. You can trust that the combined experience of our treehouse team is at your service.