Its been 2 weeks since I’ve started running my Airbnb business. Fortunately for me my investment has done pretty well booking 13 of the past 17 days I have been operational. A 76% occupancy rate which I wasn’t expecting at all. God really is good.
However, there are some challenges which I would like to share as it is not all rainbows and butterflies.
You can also read about my beginnings by clicking on my first Airbnb article here.
If you are planning to start your own hospitality business then make sure to follow me and let me know in the comments so we could connect and share best practices as well as exchange ideas. I will be posting regular updates on how the business is running so stay tuned for that.
The first challenge as a host is time commitment. I thought at first that all I needed to do was hand the keys and go Netflix and chill until they checkout. Well I’m sorely mistaken. This is a hands on business as I need to greet guests. Contact security to inform them of my guests arrival. And then prepare to meet them again for checkout. I also have to be on my phone, ipad, or laptop as booking requests and inquiries will arrive any time of the day (or night)
Another challenge is that, while I get to charge for a cleaning fee, I do the cleaning myself. I do not have a trusted cleaning service yet. And I only have 2 hours to prep the place for another guest during back to back bookings. Sure I get to pocket the cleaning fee, but truth be told I would rather pay someone to do this for me.
All my previous guests have been wonderfully amazing. They left the place in a manner that is easy to clean and tidy up and have few, very reasonable requests. However, there are guests which I have to turn down these are what I would call potentially difficult guests who has a ton of asks and demands and has very high expectations from me and my place. I run a home sharing business and not a 5 star hotel. My place isn’t a staycation destiny which I’ve clearly outlined in my listing. These types of guests I have to politely decline as I’d rather lose income than set up unrealistic expectations and be unable to deliver.
Parking is another challenge which I wasn't expecting at all. I have 2 parking slots across my name, first one is what I actually use. The second, I had rented out long term to a tenant. This might have been a wrong move as many of my guests are inquiring about using parking. I was under the impression that I would be dealing with backpackers most of the time. Needless to say I had to turn down a number of guests because I can't guarantee their parking.
And while I only encountered one instance of something that needed repairing (I'm actually at fault due to oversight ). I still would need to find the right person to have it fixed.
A potential challenge and something which I wish would not happen anymore is the threat of another global pandemic. Needless to say, this would cripple many businesses all around the globe. A recession would cause profits to slow down making my income lower.
So that pretty much sums up all the downsides that I have recently experienced. I hope that this post doesn't discourage anyone who is planning to start their short term rental business as there are different ways to overcome this. Plus the fact that I haven't mentioned any of the positive sides yet. Did I mention that the money is very very very good? I will make sure to write about that later.