Ask HN: Who's an AirBnB host? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Who's an AirBnB host?

14 pointstixocloud16 comments

Just wanted to learn more about the complexities of being a AirBnb host.

I'm an Airbnb Super Host, I own my home and my girlfriend does too. We eventually decided to move in together so my place is fully converted into a rental unit, I've taken everything that I care about out of the unit except for one closet which I added a locking handle to.

I also purchased a two sets of white linens that I bleach between rentals, having twice as many as I need for a stay and having the ability to bleach out stains has made dealing with linens easier. I have a professional cleaning crew that handles everything else.

I have an August lock that integrates with AirBnB that automatically sets up access during the guest's stay. I also have a backup lock box for when guests have trouble with that. In general it's been pretty good.

I have had a few issues where guests are expecting a townhouse to have hotel style amenities, different people have different expectations of what AirBnB is supposed to provide and for what price (I'm significantly cheaper than hotels in the area). For the most part I feel like people read the descriptions and reviews on places to find somewhere that meets their expectations but it would be helpful if there was some kind of "service level" ranking that had a policy associated with it or something.

Do you mean something like a star rating system that hotels use? (i.e. 3-star means ABC, 4-star means XYZ, etc.)

I'm an Airbnb host. I rent out the guest house behind my house. I have one of those realtor keyboxes so I don't have to be around for guests to check in and out. My Airbnb calendar is setup to sync with my cleaner's ical. I pay my cleaner over PayPal. I use Handy to fix problems as they come up (they can use the keybox to get in too). I use BeyondPricing's dynamic pricing as it's better than Airbnb's dynamic pricing. It ends up being not much more work than having a regular tenant for quite a bit more money.

Wow. That's quite a nice setup you have. Do you find that you still get a regular stream of guests even though it's only short periods of time as opposed to a regular tenant?

I'm at over 90% occupancy over two and a half years.

I'm an Airbnb host who has been doing it for close to 6 months now. I'm currently renting out a studio apartment unit (around 550 sq feet) with an annualized rental yield close to 10% (one reason the yield is so high is because I bought the place 3-4 years ago while it was still under construction).

Airbnb is relatively straight forward. Check-in and check-out can be done via a key drop (typically the mailbox with a combination lock). The main thing you have to worry about is cleaning up after every guest... some guests don't know how to clean up after themselves. Get second hand furniture to save costs.

I really recommend that you try it. The business model behind Airbnb is quite brilliant.

As a somewhat frequent Airbnb guest (about ten times in the last five years), I can second that getting check-in right is key. I've had a couple places I've stayed at where I had to pick up the key from a different location (once a convenience store around the corner, but another time it was from a friend of the host a few miles away!) and this is frustrating. I tend to not mention it in reviews/let it affect the rating I give but other people are probably less lenient than I am...

I've had one like this too internationally where the key had to be picked up from someone else at another shop but the host gave terrible directions and to my confusion the shop didn't exist on Google Maps. It ended up taking over an hour to be able to get the key and check in meanwhile I'm wheeling around a suitcase in the super hot summer sun. At the end, returning the key added another half hour, to a trip that was already just a few days. That host in particular also claimed to have AC on Airbnb but really only had fans. It added unnecessary stress to a short trip. The key box really should be a universal thing.

Any chance I could have a private chat about your AirBnb experience? I don't want to hijack this thread but I wanted to ask about your wifi policies.

Hey saimiam, sure no problems. You can drop me an email at davidkohcw@gmail.com and I'll be happy to answer your questions.

That is tempting. What's the frequency of the guests?

I was a host for a few months. It's a great way to make some extra cash but fatigue pretty quickly set in. Eventually I moved in with my significant other, and that was a great decision. Be prepared to be paranoid about regulations and taxes. When it comes to guests, expect the unexpected and be prepared for worst-case scenarios. Most guests are great, but some bad apples really make it challenging. Always have a spare of everything and be ready random for requests 24/7.

Yeah, I am quite freaked out about all the other "stuff" that I'd have to deal with especially given some horror stories around my area.

I've been hosting for almost two years. The hardest part is definitely getting reliable cleaners/scheduling cleaners. I wrote some software to auto send emails to the guest, remind the cleaners, and remind me to reprogram the door code etc. So now I spend about 15 minutes per week answering random questions with everything else semi-automated.

that's pretty amazing. How much do you pay for the cleaners?

We've gone through a couple. Right now we pay them $65 a cleaning.

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