Lessons from my first Airbnb

[Brandon Allenczy]

My wife and I decided to get started in REI by converting our primary home into our first short term rental. We packed up and moved to Asheville, NC, and started to manage the Airbnb back in Wilmington, NC.

We're on our third guests so far and the lessons learned have been invaluable. Here's a summary of what I've learned so far:

1. Things will break. Immediately.

2. Your systems are ****. If you think they aren't, you're wrong.

3. The quality of your systems gets shown AFTER your first guests, not before.

[Paul Sandhu]

Whenever an appliance breaks, I usually change it out with a working appliance.  I take the broken one to my workshop and use Google and Youtube to fix it.  If I have to order parts, I order 3x as many as a I need.  I have spare sets of agitator dogs, refridgerator circulation fans, gas valves for hot water heaters, etc.  I fix the broken appliance, and keep the extra replacement parts for the next time a similar problem happens.  It may not be practical if you just have half a dozen STRs, but I have 23.  My bigger houses have 2 washers/dryers/fridges.