Airbnb Hosting as an Individual or Business/Brand? Building to sell/transfer

[Eddie Gonnella]

Hi all, I want to start a thread about the pros and cons of listing STRs with a personal individual hosting account vs as a 'brand' or 'business' account. I currently own and self-manage two STRs in Maine and should be closing on a small 'cabin campground' with 10 cabins nearby that will also be operated as STRs. 

Currently, I manage my two listings with my personal Airbnb account, like most do. https://www.airbnb.com/users/s.... 

But I have seen other pages, especially ones that have clusters of listings like this cabin campground will have, have the host be a brand/business. And then the personal page host is listed as co-host. Here's an example: https://www.airbnb.com/users/s...

I'm trying to be forward thinking as far as how I will eventually exit the STR management business. I intend to continue to scale a bit in this area, but eventually I'd like to either sell or hire someone to manage everything. So I'm trying to have a "built to sell" type mentality here.

I'm curious to hear from others who have been through this longer, have more listings, have a business account, or have even sold / transitioned their properties to managers before. What would you the pros and cons are of the different hosting account strategies? Here's what I have so far: 

Primary host with personal account + co-host(manager, brand account)

-Pros: My super host status carries over which will help the new listings get off the ground. People like to rent from a person not a 'brand', it's more personal. My reviews carry with me for life, maybe I sell these properties but in 15 years I want to start another STR business.

-Cons: On sale of property, the new owner would have to start from scratch on the income generation. No way to transition listings to someone else and detach my account from the property. 

Primary host with brand account + co-host with personal account

-Pros: Could continue to scale and then sell all listings & account together as a business rather than strictly real estate assets (more valuable with the 10 cabin property than with the SFH STRs). People looking to book may see that it is a brand account and look up the brand, then book direct. Easy to transition this to a property manager, or even have multiple people run the account, than if the account is a personal account.

-Cons: Feels less "Airbnb-y" and personalized to book from a brand instead of from a person. Have to start from scratch on reviews/super host status. 

Additionally, would love to hear how others manage multiple listings with the help of others. Do you put managers/assistants/employees in as co-hosts? Let them reply from your personal account? Is this all handled by the PMS and then routed to the guest by whoever is the primary host? Do these messages disclose that you aren't speaking with the actual owner if you aren't?

[Eddie Gonnella]

Quote from @John Underwood:

You can't sell your account.

You can only sell SFR properties based on comps not rental income.

John, thanks for engaging. I'm not sure I'm following your quick dismissal of the idea though. If I had a brand based account, why couldn't I sell that with a building(s)? And I'm looking more specifically for this 10 cabin campground property that I am purchasing. That is most definitely sold on income. It is a commercial property/business that I am buying.

And if you had 4 or 5 SFR that were all hosted by a "brand account" you could certainly sell them as a portfolio to someone, and including the account that runs them and generates all the income would be very valuable. I'm familiar with how a SFH traditionally sells, and how it is based on comps. This kind of sale I'm alluding to would certainly be a non-conventional sale. But even still, SFH can be bought on rental income with DSCR loans and having an account come with the property would definitely increase the value and income generating potential.