Comment by rticesterp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rticesterp | Hacker News Reader

I have a whole home AirBnB. My energy prices have tripled in the past three years. My labor costs have gone up 50% in the past three years. Guest has a problem connecting to WiFi? HandyMan charges $95 just to show up and $120/hour with a minimum of one hour. $200 just to reset the router. That eats into a $300/night stay quickly. It's always something and guests expect the same level of service as a hotel and that's not cheap to provide. That's why that even with a $2000 a month mortgage, I need at least $6000 a month to break even.

I leave 5 star reviews for all guests and my only checklist item is for it not to look like the hotel room from the hangover. I pay cleaners good money to clean your mess.

AirBnB has been vary guest friendly IMO. I have over 200 five star reviews. A guest tried to push for a discounted stay. I pushed back and they told AirBnB my place was unsafe and I was removed from search for a week.

EDIT: TLDR. I started this 4 years ago as a side hustle but I'm ready to be out of the game. It doesn't scale to provide a nice place that I also use as a vacation home. Also, I'm constantly replacing and repairing things. The only way to win is to be a slumlord AirBnB host

$300/night is more than most hotels charge with a lot of amenities and service. If you don't want to pay the handyman charges to reset the router, you can go and do it yourself for free. You're paying for convenience of not having to do it yourself and that cuts into profit.

Most airbnb owners I've had would have probably just shrugged if the wifi was down over my stay.

Yeah, we also have a $2000 square foot home. That's correct. I can't stop what I'm doing at work to check on an issue with the home. $200 is the cost to get someone else to stop what they are doing and check on the home ASAP

There's no reason to think you must be profitable renting out a house by the night, or that you'll be efficient running a one client hotel that relies on a site like airbnb that has been in serious decline for some time.

In 2008 when the housing market crashed I got stuck way, way underwater on a mortgage. To avoid foreclosure I rented out the house (with a professional property manager), and I was shocked at the senseless destruction and idiocy of people. 3 times in a week the tenant complained that the furnace wasn't working. Each time a guy came out and said "the temperature on the thermostat is the temperature in the house. everything is working perfectly." and then billed me $120. Yet, each time the tenant complained (because he didn't believe the guy I guess??) the property manager had to send someone out. In retaliation for me not "fixing" the furnace (that was working perfectly) the tenant beat the living hell out of the walls and wood flooring, broke glass, and even put the knobs from the stove into the garbage disposal. Never again. I'll just bull doze the next house before renting it.

For future reference, that was a "inhospitable" scam (Aka uninhabitable scam.)

In many states (at least the ones that get cold) the lack of a working furnace means that the unit is not "hospitable" and the tenant is allowed to withhold rent until the unit is made hospitable. In some states, the tenant is not required to pay rent for the period of time the unit is not "hospitable." Your tenant tried to do that, but failed.

Too many people on HN post the absurd prices they pay for handy work because they don't know how to negotiate or how to get 5+ quotes on a project.

You do not need to pay those rates. You need a different handyman. Even in the bay area.

They need a handyman who will definitely show up on short notice.

Anyone can find cheap handymen. It's much harder to find one who is always available.

That's exactly it. That's the cost to pay a good handy man, that will definitely show up on short notice. I'm paying for those 5 9s of reliability. I can't stop doing what I'm doing at work at noon to drive out and resolve an issue that's likely user error.

That handyman is also blowing off other jobs and dealing with the fallback of blowing off of those other jobs. $200 is the market rate for that

What’s a reasonable rate to get a handyman out to a site on short notice?

You can’t “negotiate” and get 5 quotes when you need someone now. Every day you wait is a day that vacancy is costing you money.

I haven’t done traditional rental property in over a decade. It’s not worth the hassle.

Sounds like an unsustainable business model.

It definitely is. I was lured in by the promise of 60K in revenue with 24K in mortgage expenses. There's so much wear and tear and so many things break. I agree that eventually it will be a race to the bottom. The good hosts and guests will leave.

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