The Highs and Lows of my First Week as an AirBnB Host

[Victor Mondragon]

Howdy BP Family,

I feel as though I have gained a year of experience worth of being an AirBnB host in a week. For over a year I have been working on building a garage apartment in my backyard in the Houston Heights neighborhood in Texas. I have meticulously designed, built, decorated, furnished, cleaned, stocked with hotel-like essentials, cleaned again, and published my property as a vacation rental on AirBnB.

I went live exactly a week ago (on March 2, 2019) and have experienced the following roller coaster in the past 7 days:

March 2nd: I put the finishing touches on the décor of my garage apartment, or as I call it online my "guesthouse". I snap a couple of pictures on my phone and spend several hours crafting a persuasive and compelling description of my property. My neighbor a few houses down had previously inquired about the availability of my rental due to his parents coming to visit from out of town for five days. I was ecstatic to have someone already lined up, and especially for a 5 day stay. I hustle to get the link posted and sent to over to my neighbor, but I took too long to go live and their parents decided to book elsewhere. That one kind of hurt, but I understood. I'll call this the first "low" in my brief career as a host.

March 5th: I get my first two bookings within hours of each other!! One from a family of four traveling from New York to Houston for spring break for 5 nights, and another from a family of four that lives a few miles away that needed a place to stay for a few nights as they had repair work done on their own home. I was ecstatic to have a total of 7 nights booked and particularly jazzed about my payout total being around $700. This hosting thing is easy, amazing, and will line my pockets with cash! YES!!! This is absolutely my first "high" and it felt amazing! I was taking huge swigs of the proverbial AirBnB kool-aid at this point.

March 6th AM: I earn another booking from a young man who says he is originally from Houston and coming back into town for a night to visit his friends. Awesome! This'll be a quick 1-night stay and another $154 in my pocket ($84 from my nightly rate + 70 cleaning fee)

March 6th PM: I get yet ANOTHER booking!! This time from a lady traveling to Houston from Washington DC with her two sons to come visit her daughter. 4 more nights! My total payout is around $1200 for the month, and I now have a total of 12 nights booked. AMAZING!!!! I am the man!!! Should I start increasing my nightly rate? Should I quit my day job? Should launch my own vacation rental property management company?? I'm invincible and clearly the hottest new AirBnB host in my market! I have only been live 4 days and have already earned enough bookings to cover my monthly expenses and make a profit in March. YES!!!! **Struts around the house in like a rooster in a way that I'm sure causes my wife's eyes to roll out of the back of her head**

March 7th: It's go time. My first guests check in today and I am feeling nervous, eager, hopeful, and more all at once. Their check-in is seamless and they are so quiet that I have to check my garage door opener app to make sure they even made it in. They asked about the wifi password, and I promptly reply within seconds with the password. I'm feeling like I'm on top of this hosting business. I'm basically an expert now right?

March 9th AM: My first guests check out right at 8:00am, four hours early. I dart back to my garage apartment with my wife as soon as they send me a message to verify they have checked out. There is hardly any evidence of them ever even being on my property!! The didn't cook, they hardly had any trash, they left zero mess anywhere. All I really had to do was wash the linens on the beds and the few towels they used. I had my second guest (The single guy coming through for 1 night)checking in at 3:00pm so I had my housekeeper meet me at the property to ensure the meticulous checklist I had crafted for her to follow as she cleaned, took inventory, and replaced used toiletries and coffee products. At this point I was feeling more and more secure in my decision to become a host. I had implemented precise systems for check-in, check-out, cleaning, and inventorying the contents of the home. Maybe I really should quit my day job, I feel like I'm crushing this whole thing...


March 9th PM: My wife gets home around 11pm and wakes me up to tell me that there are people smoking on our garage apartment balcony. I peek out the back window to see for myself. Sure enough there are 2 people sitting on my brand new teak wood patio bistro set meticulously rolling something up while smoking. I sent my guest a message via the AirBnB app reminding them of our strict no smoking policy and telling him that it also included the balcony. He promptly replies with a swift "Yessir sorry about that!" I consider the matter closed and try to go back to bed.

March 10th Midnight: people keep parking in front of my house, having loud conversations, and piling into my small, brand-new, 764 sqft garage apartment. I panic and call the AirBnB support line. They asked if I had reached out to my guest about the issue and I told them that I had not reached out about the volume of people in my guesthouse, but I had addressed an earlier smoking violation with him. They told me they would reach out to him and remind him of my listing’s house rules which include no smoking and no parties.

March 10th around 1:30AM: My wife is furious and I am starting to panic. My block is lined with people, and 3 young men had just walked up to my door with a bottle of liquor in hand. By some miracle they did not wake up my 20 month old baby, but they did manage to express their discontent when I told them there was no party at my home. At this point I had seen 4 or 5 car loads of people walk around to the garage apartment. True panic is beginning to set in and I begin to wonder what type of damage is being done to my brand new guesthouse. My wife urges me to call AirBnB back and she decides to call the police. We both get on the phone…

March 10th 2:00AM: There are now people hanging out in my back yard (Which is fenced off from the rental guesthouse), on the street in front of my house, next to my wife’s car in our driveway, and hanging off the balcony of the guesthouse with a blunt in their mouth. I am furious, worried for my property, feeling like a bad neighbor to the rest of my block, and frankly scared for my family’s safety. AirBnB tells me they can cancel the booking due to multiple violations of my house rules, but at this point I just want these people to leave. My wife is even more upset and I am torn between panic and trying to be strong for her.

March 10th 3:30AM: The police show up and walk with us around to the back guesthouse. My wife and I wait in the alleyway behind our property as the officer goes upstairs with a flashlight to break up the party. I hear what sounds like a horse stampede upstairs and question if my house can structurally support so many people. He quickly drives out well over 40 people from my guesthouse. Once they all trickle out in various stages of shock, drunk, high, and who knows what else, my wife and I step in to assess the damage.

March 10th 4:00AM: We enter our Guesthouse to a strong odor of weed and cigarette smoke. As we walk the house with the officer I am dumbfounded by a number of party-goers that have the testicular fortitude to come back and demand to re-enter the property to search for a lost cell phone charger, or a box to a tequila bottle. The officer calmly tells them to wait outside and cheerfully comes back up to fetch whatever they request. We noticed our new trashcan had dents in it and a face had been carved into a closet door. There is also sticky spilled mixed drinks on the wood floors, walls, and wood stairs. We pull the linens and towels into the washer, request a police report from the officer, and head back to our house exhausted.

March 10th 7:00AM: My daughter woke me up and I feel happy that she was not affected by the party that happened in our backyard. I have to figure out a way to get the smoke smell out, the sticky spills cleaned, the closet door replaced, and get everything back into order before my next guest arrives from New York tomorrow.

I feel as though in my first week as a host I have experienced both extremes of guests. The best possible kind that doesn’t make a peep, uses the coasters, and didn’t require much housekeeping beyond a simple linen and towel swap. The worst possible kind that has an epic party complete with 40+ guests, illegal drugs, property damage, and a sleepless night for my wife and I.

At this point I am not certain what the future holds for me as an AirBnB host, but I nonetheless remain proud of my preparation prior to my first guest arrival, composure in the face of adversity, and overall hard work in becoming an AirBnB host.

I hope sharing my story helps you all make an informed decision on the future of your investments.  

All the best, 

Victor