We made $5,985.38 renting out our two-bedroom aparmtent on our last vacation.
This post is how anyone and everyone should try to rent out their house on Airbnb (or Homeaway) while they travel. We both plan our travel during peak weeks ($3,939.17 of that was from the event SXSW alone) and we try to rent out our home when we know we’re going to be gone.
People often are concerned about the same things or have the same objections to renting out their own home (for which we have basic answers):
- “I have too much valuable stuff in my home.”
- “I’m worried about partiers / bad people.”
Then there are problems you might not have thought of for which we already have solutions:
- Why you need to have multiple reservations throughout your vacation (and therefore a cleaner and our automated system).
- How to strategize your travels and bookings.
We’ll go over all details of renting out your place, but if you need more detailed info, check out our Complete Guide To Making Money On Airbnb.
Why Not Doing This Is Absolutely Crazy
To me, it is crazy how many people scoff at renting out their home – which involves no work whatsoever… Yet, they’ll spend hours going from WalMart to WalMart to buy gift cards just to earn miles to hopefully find award availability with low fees – all that to get a flight that Norwegian is selling for $200 all-in.
I personally would rather make $4,000 in one week doing nothing than have to stand in the money-order line anywhere.
But the real crazy part to me is that this unwillingness to try it once isn’t just giving up thousands of dollars one time… It could be giving up thousands of dollars every year.
Let’s assume there is some event or peak weekend in your town that could make you ~$4,000 in a week (some places more, some places less), or even half, $2,000. If you do that every year for the next 10 years (-Airbnb demand is growing, btw-), that’s $20,000.
Or for me, $40,000.
Like… you’d really trade finding out the potential of making $40,000 because you don’t want a stranger using your home when you’re not there?
Yes, we still lock up our valuables in a closet (with a $10 deadbolt), and use basic screening (which I’ll talk about). But the one-time we had something break because of a guest, Airbnb paid us for the full cost of the repair guy (a reason not to fix things yourself) and for the canceled reservation caused by the repair (even though the week got rebooked).
We’ve never had any personal loss and we made $6k on our last vacation alone, and I definitely plan to be doing this in 10 years.
Because, as I discussed in our Guide To Making Money On Airbnb, nearly the entire process is automated.
And guess what? $6k can buy you a new set of sheets. Heck it can replace your TV (even though insurance would as well).
A Profitable Vacation
We spent the last 24 days in Mexico City for the majority of it, New York (briefly), and New Orleans. All together we spent something like $400 in flights, a good 50,000 points, and close to $1,000 in lodging.
I doubt we spent more than $1,000 in food (and Mexico City food is amazing).
And our rent is $1,600.
We probably spent a little over $3,000 and made $6,000.
People around here are trying to figure out how to get their travel expenses to as close to $0 as possible, and we’re making money on vacation.
Basic Security
- Buy a deadbolt. We dedicated a walk-in closet to stuff we are protective of. Documents, a laptop, cards, and that’s really it. We didn’t always do this, and haven’t had problems with any of our stuff… But the deadbolt was $10.
- Settings for accepting guests:
- We only accept people with a verified id.
- We sometimes have our setting set to only accept people with positive reviews from other hosts. For those of you who are paranoid, that might be a “must”. However, if you’re in a slower time, it might help to be one of those who instant-approve new guests.
- Set a 3 day minimum. Most partiers are booking 1 night stays.
Strategies For Planning Travel Around Bookings
Ideas For Finding Big Events
- Check average Airbnb prices for each major event in your area.
- Check event calendars to do so, but know that most people book within 30 days.
- Join a Facebook group for your local airbnb hosts and ask.
- Find a friend who lists on Airbnb and ask which are the big weekends and if there’s anything booked way in advance.
Many people think the town they live in won’t do well. But just list it and find out. It costs you nothing.
To me, the most important part is indeed being in a place that will sell out. But that could be a small town with one event and no place to stay! It happens all the time.
And the second most important thing is having a clean house in good condition. If people are going to complain that your house isn’t clean or in good condition, take the time to really clean your house, especially before a stay.
If you do have any issues, be very transparent. We are overly transparent in our listings so no one is surprised. But if you have issues with essentials (heat, plumbing, cleanliness), people will complain regardless. you shouldn’t rent out your house if someone can’t be comfortable there.
1) Only keep your calendar open for dates when you’re available and wanting to leave.
Only have off a week in July? That’s okay, list your place and open up the calendar in a time you can take a vacation.
2) List your place when you’re going to be on vacation at a relatively low price.
Already have a vacation planned? Perfect, just price it to get booked during your days of travel.
My pricing philosophy to get the most amount of money is to be the lowest price in my area and house type (i.e. 2 bedroom vs 4 bedroom) one month out. Most bookings are made within 30 days of arrival. If you’re frequently booked earlier than that, your prices are too low.
But often waiting til the last week to lower your prices means missing out.
Rule of thumb is that the bigger the place, the further in advance people book. If you have a 5 bedroom, you might want to be the lowest price in your area 3 months out. Depends on demand and your market.
3) Keep your prices high, and only leave if you get a booking.
Our personal place can often get booked for $299 a night in spring because Austin is so busy.
If you’re not sure it’s worth it, set your prices high enough that you’re happy with the amount.
There are two problems problem with this strategy.
First, few people book places at really high prices for a week-long stay (unless it’s SXSW). Most of the time it’s a weekend booking. But maybe it’s a good chance to get paid to take the family to the beach or whatever.
Second, most high bookings are last minute bookings. That’s fine with me because I only keep my calendar open during times that make sense for us to travel. Usually, Airbnb just determines what date we leave on.
However, this is a strategy for picking your travel date, and not filling in your travel dates with bookings. For that you don’t want the large chance no one will book, and you want to be the cheapest.
4) You can put your house on request only, see how much money you’d make, and then decide.
Personally, we keep all of our places on instant-book- I think most people prefer it or are filtering by it.
However, for those of you using strategy #3 of keeping your house at a high rate, you might not want to get kicked out last minute. Put it on request and decide once you see the booking.
I wouldn’t just leave dates open that you know you don’t want booked, because your approval rating and response rate may affect your search ranking.
Again, if your strategy is to fill in dates you know you’re going to be gone, go ahead and put it on instant-book to increase your chances of getting a booking. You can always use basic filters to make sure you get a real person with positive reviews. What else would you be screening for?
Automating Everything While You’re Gone
We wrote a giant section in our Guide To Making Money On Airbnb on automating everything, including pricing, messages, check-in/out, and cleaning. This is super helpful for us when we’re in remote areas or in different time zones.
Check that post for details, but I’ll give a small summary here.
Cleaner
The most important part (besides the electronic deadbolt) is a competent cleaner who has your schedule and door code.
We found our cleaners on Craigslist and tested every one out when we were here to see the work. Although an interview goes a long way. My big take away here is that if they don’t have their own supplies, skip!
Also, try asking on your local facebook group for Airbnb hosts. Most big cities have one and cleaners will promote on there.
This is also important because it is way easier to get multiple 3-night bookings than it is to get someone to book your entire trip length. (If you’re leaving for 3 weeks, don’t expect someone to magically want to book 3 weeks in your place.)
Check-in/out
I love this deadbolt. Love it. I wouldn’t live in a house without it. I love going on a jog and not taking a key.
But it certainly also makes everything possible for cleaners and check-ins.
As a guest, I also hate having to meet people to get a key on Airbnb. So many times that person is late or there’s a miscommunication.
Automating Messaging
We use a tool called YourPorter app to send messages after booking, before checkin, and before checkout.
For more details see the bigger Airbnb post.
We include anything someone might want to know, including check-in details and code.
This app also allows you to text your cleaner a schedule ahead of time.
Conclusion / My Opinion
My opinion is that as long as you can take the time away from work, you should open up your Airbnb calendar. If you’re flexible enough, have the entire year open at $299 a night and leave if it gets booked.
SkyScanner.com has a great feature where you can search flights from your city to “everywhere” on specific dates and it will show you the cheapest roundtrip flights. From Austin there are often weekends with super cheap flights to New Orleans, Denver, Vegas, Cancun, etc… I can search for flights to everywhere for the dates I need to be out of my house and it will tell me the cheapest flight options.
Or you can use miles to get anywhere and look for a hotel deal (read: 9 ways to get Hotel Deals).
Really, it’s a chance to get away to wherever you want to go and make money while you’re gone.
As those of you who have been following us for years now, when we traveled full-time without a home base, we were able to spend under $700 a month on luxury hotels using the tricks I post about on this site.
Now that we “live” somewhere and have a lease, we made about $4,000 profit in the 24 days we were gone in March (that’s $6,000 minus our rent, utilities, and paying the cleaner).
We’re using this new Airbnb knowledge as an added skill to the hotel deal tricks we use while traveling full-time. Now, traveling is not just cheap or free… It’s profitable.
And again, there’s no reason not to list your house. Just list it and put your prices high for now, or close off all dates except your vacation.
And if you signup and list now, use our link here. 😉
I LOVE Airbnb and have been renting out there since it started. I own several properties around the world and Airbnb them out. My wife would NEVER allow our personal home though and I guess I’m ok with that.
Also, something you might want to try if you’re open to renting your house out is listing your property on HomeExchange.com. I have my vacation rental properties on there and I’ve done over 100+ home exchanges over the past 15 years. Most to amazing properties that are much more expensive than our rental properties.
Good tip! Never heard of it.
Great content and tips as always. Curious if you would still do this in a rural / lower rental per night area? (Chesterland, OH) I would probably be happy with $49 a night still but with AirBnB Fees (10%) plus cleaning I’m not sure if its worth it.
I mean, it’s worth it in my mind: free money and paid for house cleaning.
Honestly though, people are constantly shocked at what their house will get. There are slow times and peak signs as always… But I’ve heard from a lot of people that have houses in rural places that somehow make a ton of money.
The biggest thing would be the resources I mention in the other post.
– Check Airbnb for similar listings on different weekends
– Check Airdna.co
Mainly those two.
I’ve been reading your posts about Airbnb. I don’t see this as so black and white. Straight to the point. People have different lifestyles. My biggest concern for trying this is what to do with all of my personal stuff. I have a 3 br, 2 bath, 1 car garage home. Two adults and a young child. What do you do with all of your stuff.? Our closest/dressers are stuffed with clothes, shoes, toys, personal belongings, etc… What about the kitchen cabinets and fridge/freezer? Ours are full of all sorts of dry food, freezer stuff, condiments, etc… I believe this works well for people with a more minimalist life styles, but not sure how practical it is for those of us who have accumulated a lot of personal belongings. If it was lucrative enough we could load up all of our clothes and put them in the garage. Have a bigger chest freezer in the garage to hold all the freezer items, etc.. Also, not all cities are like Austin with large sold out events. My city doesn’t have anything like that. I think realistically my house could demand $250 per night towards the high end max gross. If I leave for a 1 week vacation and get a 3 night booking, then that’s $750 gross, but after the 20% Airbnb fee, the 12% city bed tax, two $80 cleanings; I’m left with $368 in my pocket. That’s starting to seem like a lot of work for having to move all of my stuff out.
I think you may be over-thinking it. Airbnb was originally a way to rent our your personal home only.
You can rent out an empty house with no furniture for the right price AS LONG AS the description is fully transparent. We try to be transparent at every turn. In some cases we’ve had a popup before they confirm the booking to say “you know you’re booking a ____”, like when we rented out our guest bedroom, we wanted people to know it’s a shared space.
It should totally be clean. But our closet is packed, our fridge and pantry is full. Yours might be fuller, but people are looking for a bed, couch, and kitchen.
Don’t store it away, leave it. Let people use the condiments too. It’s a benefit. People who stay in a place that someone literally just bought for airbnb might not have all the spices they need. Then you have to go buy a thing of sugar, salt, butter, etc… Just to make a basic meal.
Also, our most profitable place is in a small town in Texas and I know of multiple people that have airbnb’s in rural areas of middle america that are making money.
The big thing is the supply demand ratio. Sure, there’s no SXSW where you are, but if there is any reason people would be staying there on a certain weekend, guests will run out of supply quickly. That’s the only reason we make a ton during SXSW is the supply goes. In fact, that’s a hard thing to do in austin with over 10,000 listings. But in middle Texas, 100 people come and the entire town is sold out.
So in my mind, it’s worth the experiment to find out if you make more than $400, and it’s a free $400 as you don’t have to move out your stuff. You just need it clean.
Also… Just want to say, I really do have a very minimal amount of stuff in my house. It looks like we haven’t moved in yet. And my parents have a lifetime worth of stuff. We have very different situations, and I don’t know the best answer for you.
But I will say, my friend has lived in the same place for 20 years and he rents out his place. He has to tidy up more than me, and he has to stack stuff in a way that we don’t. But he puts it in his description and prices accordingly. That’s why I talk about transparency. If you put your stuff in cardboard boxes and piled them up in the corner of a room, that’s fine AS LONG AS it’s in the description and the photos are honest.
Again, I don’t know your specific house, but my point is that you can let the guest decide if it’s still worth booking.
the small town in the middle of texas, are you referring to college station/bryan?
I looked at property in College Station online and thought it was too expensive. Definitely can’t get a house for $34k + repairs there. If you could though, I think that it would be a good deal and profitable!
I have the same concerns as AlaskanTraveler regarding what to do with personal belongings. Your intro even lists it as a common objection, but your only solution is get a deadbolt. I was interested in your reply, but it was basically a single sentence: “Don’t store it away, leave it.”
That reply doesn’t really address the main question. I guess maybe you indirectly answer it because you say you didn’t always lock your stuff away. But for people like me, you don’t give a compelling argument as to what we could do or why we should do as you suggest.
The fact that you think it’s “crazy” that other people don’t do this shows that you don’t understand that there are a lot of things that motivate people. Pretty much every comment says they don’t rent out their primary home. I think that should tell you something.
Your claim that it costs “nothing” to do this is disingenuous. AlaskanTraveler pointed out the costs and benefits, and there are definitely costs, even if it’s just time and effort.
I guess I’m all around confused by what your question is.
I don’t exactly see what “costs” are associated in AlaskaTraveler’s comment, nor my own personal experience. They mention Airbnb fees very inaccurately: they don’t take 20% from the owner. On our $3,139 booking, exactly $94.17 was taken out by Airbnb. That’s about 3%, and it’s of no real cost/investment to me, it’s simply taken out of the payment I wouldn’t have if my house were empty.
What other “costs” do you speak of that I didn’t address?
It didn’t cost me anything at all… So I have no idea why that’s “disingenuous”. We spent $0 out of pocket to get these bookings, we got paid $6,000, and then we paid the cleaner a few hundred dollars with the money we made (making it a profit, not a cost). Do you have any questions or actual examples that would indicate my being disingenuous?
I don’t literally lock everything in a closet, I lock important documents. Otherwise, I put things away, this is what I mean by clean. Organized and looks good. But having some things out isn’t a big deal, a toy chest, or whatever.
I’m unsure what is unanswered or why this is seemingly personal, but I’ll do my best to address any real or specific questions (usually phrased with a question mark at the end) if you have any.
I’ll list the issues I have with this article:
1) AlaskanTraveler asked about what’s to be done about personal stuff in the house he/she didn’t want available to renters. Your article seems like it’s going to answer that question because you pose it specifically in your intro: “I have too much valuable stuff in my home.” Your article only says you put some valuables in a locked closet. And your reply to AlaskanTraveler only has the single sentence “Don’t store it away, leave it.” That doesn’t address your initial intro nor AlaskanTraveler’s question. Clearly you’re comfortable leaving your stuff out, but you never address what people who aren’t comfortable with it should do.
2) You claim “It costs you nothing.” and it “involves no work whatsoever.” That is disingenuous as Gene has pointed out too. By your glib response to Gene, it seems you are oblivious to the fact that neither of these claims is true for the audience you’re addressing (newbies to Airbnb).
Here are some examples for your article that involve work and/or money:
– deadbolt for the house: It requires time and money to buy it and install it.
– deadbolt for the closet: It requires time and money to buy it and install it.
– organizing and putting your valuables in the closet takes work.
– finding a cleaner. You need to spend time finding cleaners, interviewing, scheduling, background/reference check, etc.
– Every single thing under “Ideas for Finding Big Events” requires work.
– Understanding Airbnb requires time and effort. You mention things like verified id and instant-book. I’m sure there are tons of Airbnb-specific terms that people will need to learn and understand.
You may have things on autopilot now so that each rental doesn’t require much effort, but getting to that point took tons of effort based on your Airbnb guide.
Our model is a little different. We’ve never rented our primary residence (and we don’t travel so frequently these days) but we have a two family house and HomeAway the other unit. The effect is that instead of paying to live in our house, the house pays us — a small profit after (a relatively small) mortgage payment, taxes, insurance, and running costs.
If (when — after retirement or at least kids-at-college) we’re traveling more I’d certainly consider renting the primary unit as well if we could solve the management problem. Not too many six-bedrooms in Manhattan on the market!
That’s an awesome strategy and I have a friend doing that. Actually I have a friend that even rents out his guest rooms (2 of his 3 bedroom) and he makes double his mortgage. So it’s a great strategy that ultimately gives you control of your guest house, in case someone visits. And you control who the neighbor is.
“renting out their home – which involves no work whatsoever… ” Really? That is clearly false from your post.
To give you a very very specific example of the exact amount of work we did for this trip:
– I typed in “ai” on the keyboard of my computer, which autofills to “airbnb.com/multicalendar”, and then I clicked on that link.
– I then dragged and highlighed all the dates I wanted open. Often I let one of programs I mention price them.
From there, the apps we talk about send out messages to the guests and cleaner.
I hope that gives a good indication of my workload. Sorry for throwing around false statements.
I should say it was a hard earned $6,000. My index finger is still sore from all the work, so I’ll have to cut my comment short.
Hi Drew,
I write about this all the time! My husband travels often for work (4-6 weeks at a time) but we do not travel with him. I keep my primary residence on Airbnb (I prefer it to VRBO because of their low 3% fee and I get lots of phishing on VRBO). Last year we made 30k on the house we live in! I am a disabled vet and this provides a stream of income that I only need to leave the house. We sometimes visit family (mostly rent on the weekends), sometimes get a cheap hotel room if we don’t want to leave or my favorite – travel and get paid to do it!
Is it EASY? Yes, it’s much easier than going to a full-time job!
We have closets full, stuff in frig and freezer and personal items around. I don’t have any Van Gogh’s – I do have a lockable filing cabinet and a closet.
I have another full-time rental property in Orlando but as an Airbnb guest myself I think it’s great that we have things like you mentioned – a pinch of salt, pat of butter etc and I tell my guests that.
I am on the higher scale even when Airbnb tells me to drop my prices. We are 5-star superhost and continually book anyway.
What do you have to lose??
I’ve never had a bad experience and like Drew says – have some common sense and follow his “rules” for safety.
Safe travels
Laurie
kangaroos & kimonos