AIRbnb For Multifamily

[Kyle Ransom]

I recently had a chat with the Director Of Multi-Family Prooject with Airbnb and they are reaching out to Multi-Family Investors to offer a program to help implement short-term rentals for their properties. I have talked to single family home investors who do Airbnb instead of traditional tenant models and they say that they make more money with Airbnb. 

Has anyone tried this with their multi-family properties? If so how did it work out?

[Jean H.]

I have a triplex in Miami that I Airbnb. It’s a building that has a 2/1 on top and 2 1/1s on the bottom. It’s doing so well that I’ll be converting another triplex into Airbnb units as well.

The main difference between single family and Multifamily Airbnbs is that although each unit has a separate entrance, the guests may hear noise from the other units. So, you lose some of the privacy aspects that some guests look for. Also, what happens in one unit might affect what happens in the others (like when the guests in 1 unit trashed their place, causing cockroaches to appear in the bottom unit, which led to me giving those guests a refund).

However, as an investor, it’s nice just to have 1 roof, 1 electric bill, 1 water bill. 1 place where the cleaner can put all their cleaning and restocking supplies to service all 3 units. When I bought my second triplex, I bought it as a long term rental so included the expense of sub metering the water to my rehab costs. Now that I’m Airbnbing the triplex, I don’t have to do that since I’m responsible for all the water.

I like the small multifamily Airbnbs because you’re not competing with hotels like you would with condos (and besides, who wants the drama of having the condo board suddenly deciding that Airbnb’s are no longer allowed). The guests who stay in my guest suites like that they can open their door and be outside (and smoke if they want to). They have a guaranteed parking spot in the driveway close to their unit and aren’t forced to valet like they do at a lot of condo buildings in Miami. I’ve got green space for their kids to run and play. All the perks of a single family, just with a little less privacy but also a little expensive for the guests (but more lucrative for the investor since you’ve got more than 1 listing per property.