Totally agree with @Ken Breeze Once you come up with a solid gameplan in terms of managing your Airbnb with systems, it's crazy how easy it to make money. In fact, our place is so popular now, Airbnb is using the listing for our place in their own ads! (that they are paying for). I see them on Instagram...people can book our place directly from the app/ad and we're not even paying for it. We are currently booked up through Sept. @Dennis M. You set up your account exactly how you want in terms of screening: you can have it so that every person who inquires needs to reach out to you before accepting a booking. There is no penalty for hosts who reject a guest before the booking goes through, and sometimes I just say no because I just don't get a great vibe or don't like all the questions they were asking (I've gotten way better at trusting my gut as time has gone on). It's a very community driven platform, so if someone behaves badly, they get a bad review and then every other host can see that. If you have someone who tries to book with no reiews and a brand new account, you can just reject their request. In fact, you can set up your account to ONLY allow people with positive reviews to book. If you want to throw a party and trash a place, it's wayyyyy easier to just book a hotel room. There is no back and forth with a host, filling out profiles, etc. In two solid years of doing this, our biggest problems have been: an international guest who ignored our no smoking policy (and we easily got them to pay us an additional $200 cleaning fee after filing a complaint with Airbnb); older guests who can't figure out how to use our nespresso; and some broken plates and glasses. We charge a $100 cleaning fee to every guest (our housekeeper only charges us $40) and 99% of guests leave the space so immaculate it barely needs to be cleaned. In fact, most ask if they can strip the bed, take out the garbage or throw the towels in the washer/dryer for us. We sublet our NYC apt for two years and both tenants (who seemed lovely, had good credit, had great jobs, and even references) turned out to be a nightmare. And we were stuck with each of them for 12 months. We are currently earning 3x as much as we would with a long-term tenant with Airbnb. In fact, our monthly Airbnb earnings completely cover our mortgage payment. So Airbnb guests are building equity in our home for us AND we also get to live there (in our main house), essentially rent free. We have additional insurance that would cover any damage and Airbnb also covers up to a million dollars in damages. I totally understand your concerns, but for us, it's been pretty amazing right from go.
