Airbnb, as in “Air Bed and Breakfast,” is a service that lets property owners rent out their spaces to travelers looking for a place to stay. Travelers can rent a space for multiple people to share, a shared space with private rooms, or the entire property for themselves.
As hustle and I used to run very small room in airbnb for around 1.5 years before Covid 19. When the people talked about side hustle, they always list Airbnb as one of option as passive income. Actually, it is not really passive income. It is active income. I never had any people tell me how to run Airbnb business and I would like to share with readers about my first hand experience.
From ordinary host to super host
I only run with one room in airbnb. I didnt want to run very low quality with so many strangers in one house. Because I live in one of room, so I make another room as Airbnb listing. It was quite fun at begining. But a lot of work and risks. A lot of host think of potential income. Actually, no people mentioned the risks.
At begining, I didnt have much booking due to there is no review. I had the following tips to finally get first customers. They were backpacker and only stay in one night.
8 tips become super host of Airbnb
1, I took very good and attractive photos and showed most of the part of house.
2, I were very honest about the conditions of house. I think that the most worse is making too good description of house. Then the guest came and found that it was not real.
3, I had detailed descriptions for the rooms and always clean the room very well with clean towls, shampoo and air fresher.
4, Very quick response for all guests questions and check in and check out time. I also very flexble for check in time. But it was not very easy. Because some guest check in time was quite late than normal time. Sometimes, their airplane delay so much.
5, Set up quire clean house rules and prepared book for all instructions with Internet password and resaurants, pentrol stations.
6, Trust most of guests are kind and give them very good review after they stay.
7, Set up auto lock with password with keys for the guest and room had lock and key.
8 Always give small surprise for my guest including sweets, cake, flowers, cards….. Little things go long way.
My little room was stand out for a while and had quite few bookings and I think that I nearly had 100 reviews. Then I became super host before Covid 19.
Airbnb is hard work.
But I wanted to say that Airbnb is not easy job. It was not for everyone. It also not passive income and you need soend a lot of your own time reply message, clean, check in for the guest.Maybe superhost will never tell you. Sometimes, I think that it was not worth my time, including cleaning and risks. After one year, I used professional rental manger yo rent the whole house.
Three types of people who are not suitable for Airbnb.
1, Not suitable for professionals, if you hace professional job, it will not worth your time to do Airbnb. If you are Dr and get $200,000 per year, it will not worth you time.
2, Not suitable for very privacy people. If privacy is your number 1 priority, Airbnb is not suitable. Because you need open your home for so many strangers. Most of them were very good, but if you meet 1% bad one and will ruin a lot of reputation and gave you unlimited headache.
3, Not suitable for busy couple with the children. It is risk for so many strangers come in and going. Especailly you have the children.
My horrible story with one of Airbnb guest.
I had most of guests are very kind and they were not probelm at all. They leave a lot of touching comments for me. Kindness, generousity, friendly are most important charactes as host. One time, I got message from one 50 years lady J. J didnt want to book from Airbnb before she come have a look the room. She came the rokm and my home. She spent 1 hour go around and asked a lot of questions. I should be very careful snd refused her origianlly. But I just thought that she must be very cautious. To be honestly, the room is so cheap and budget. It was only $30 per day with all cooking and shower supply including.When J move in, first day, she sat at living room with heater on most of time till 9pm. Second day, she claimed that the heater was not warm enough. After one week, she found each small things and made a big issue. I cant stand anymore and ring Airbnb, J calimed thar she wanted first week for free due to a lot of small things thar she made up. It was first time that I feel that I met professional scam people.
It wasted me a lot of time to ring Airbnb and at the same time, J didnt want to move out either due to she found the excuse. She said that it was too hard to find anywhere cheaper and good.
I think that her expectation was too high and her personaility was too hard to get along with. She wanted to $300 per nigh quality and she even didnt want to pay $30 per night. Or she just professionals to make trobule exchange for free. It was most hard time which I run Airbnb for 1.5 years. After a lot of hard time which J made it, I finally cut loss and gave up. She lived for free and gave me so much stress and left my home. She also did very bad review for me too.
It was first time for me to leave negative review for her and warn the host which accept her in future. Warn the future host that she may has very high expectation and it was very hard to get along with.
I wish you can get some useful information from my first hand experience.
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