Air BNB vs Straight Rental

[Patrick Gledhill]

So I just wanted to see some feedback on this. I have been renting out my primary residence basement and recently had a vacancy and tried air bnb this week. I had a surprising turnout, it was booked for 4 out of the 5 days I made it available. But in my opinion what a freakin PAIN! So much work. I have a full time job, luckily I am able to go home and take care of some of the check in check out stuff. Cleaning after every guest. Worrying about reviews... And if I were to outsource cleaning and management the profits would be drained. Unless I scaled it across multiple properties that are in the same location... I have a regular rental lease signed for April 1 and I am very much looking forward to this compared to the Air bnb. because it will be on autopilot. Am I looking at this wrong?  Or does anyone else have insight on this? 

[Erik Applegate]

Currently an out of state STR owner, 1 property. Here's a few things I use: Schlage Encode lock, EcoBee thermostat, definitely a cleaner (found with an app called Properly), asked for a handyman reference from the cleaner - he is great, 3 night minimum stay. The headaches were 1-2 night stays for people that partied and broke things.

You won't be able to charge full price right away but once you get reviews you can bump up your rates (took me about 6 months to raise rates, then another 6 months to optimize and increase). I very intentionally made the rental as nice as possible and splurged a bit on furnishing and such (world market art was painful to buy but helpful). There's a ton of low quality rentals around me that charge a lot less, so having a nicer place puts me in a higher tier. 

Cashflow was 1K per month last year, on track for almost 2K this year.