Renting out a property on Airbnb or one of the other home-sharing services can be a very lucrative way to build wealth from property ownership. We should know, as we ran a profitable, multi-unit Airbnb business for many years.
Success as an Airbnb host means high-occupancy rates and above average rental rates.
It also means attracting high-quality guests who look after your property and cause you the fewest headaches.
A security guard at a condo complex, where several properties were listed once asked me why he never had problems with any of my guests, while most of the others in the complex seemed to attract regular problem guests. My answer was simple: “because I charge higher rates.” What I didn’t explain was that we had worked extremely hard to earn the ability to charge more than identical units in the same building.
To be successful as an Airbnb host requires more time, effort and expense than that needed to simply rent to long-term tenants. Unless you are prepared to invest your time into the venture or pay someone else to do so on your behalf, you will do better renting your property on a long-term basis.
I have 12 tips to help you be a successful Airbnb host.
Table of Contents
1. Treat it as a Business
This may not apply if you are looking to rent out your basement or part of your home for a little extra money, but if you plan to buy an investment property and rent it out on a short-term basis, it is the single most important thing you can do. If you get this right, you’ll find that tips 2 through 12 become so much easier and lucrative.
We definitely didn’t get everything right from the get-go and many of the tips that follow we learned through, often painful experience. However, because we got good advice when we started as hosts, our business-like attitude helped us learn and adapt to become better at what we did.
On the other hand, I am absolutely convinced that if you don’t treat your Airbnb as a business you will struggle.
If your property is in a heavily underserved market, you might prosper for a while. However, if you don’t treat it as a business, in the long-run, the poor choices you make will eventually come back to bite you hard.
2. Make Smart Property Purchases
If you already own the property you plan to list on Airbnb, or it’s an inheritance, this may not apply, but if, as we did, you buy investment properties specifically to use as Airbnb rentals, you need to choose your property carefully.
The old saying goes that when it comes to property only three things matter: location, location, location. It’s exactly the same with Airbnb properties.
Some factors are universal, such as the area being, or at least seeming to be, relatively safe. However, for others you need to understand your target market. So do your research and decide what type of travellers you expect to make up the majority of your guests. We targeted business travellers, so we purchased units within easy reach of Kingston’s main business district.
Your target market will also help you decide on the type of property to purchase. With our business travellers in mind, we chose one-bedroom condos in modern, gated communities with security guards.
3. Set-up your Rentals Right
It really makes sense to get your property set-up right from the beginning. There are four key factors for everything within your rental unit: durability, usability, convenience, and aesthetics.
For example, we quickly learned that when it came to high-use surfaces, such as coffee tables, glass required far less maintenance than wooden ones. We also chose furniture and fabrics carefully to balance the sometimes-competing needs of durability and aesthetics.
We also changed shower fittings in our units. While many people enjoy the luxury of a rainfall shower, if given the choice between one or the other, most would opt for the usability of a shower head with a detachable hose. We also knew that business travellers would want fast, reliable Wi-Fi and a place where they could work comfortably.
When we first started, I studied listings on Airbnb and realized that we had to choose furniture that looked good in photographs. As our units were on the smaller size, we realized huge pieces of furniture would make them appear even smaller than they were, so we picked our furniture with this in mind.
4. Photos
I think that is goes without saying that a great Airbnb listing includes fabulous photographs. If Airbnb offers to send around a professional photographer, you should take up the offer. If they don’t, and you don’t have the equipment and skills yourself, it’s worth spending a little money for professional grade photos.
Stage your property carefully, clear surfaces, fluff the pillows and cushions, and ensure that the place is absolutely spotless. And, of course, make sure that the lighting is just right.
When you upload your photographs, ensure that you post enough so that potential guests know exactly what your listing offers.
Pictures of washers and dryers may not excite much or get points for artistic endeavour, but they send an important message about what guests can expect. You want your photos to paint a comprehensive visual picture of your listing but avoid duplication and unnecessary pictures. You don’t want to bore people interested in your property.
The most important photograph is the one you choose as the cover. The job of this picture is to encourage someone browsing listings to click on your entry.
If the exterior of your property looks good, this can be a great choice. As our properties were in modern apartment complexes, we always used an exterior shot that showed the external features of the building, as we found this appealed most to our target audience.
5. Create a Strong Listing and Profile
An Airbnb listing is not just about great pictures, the wording is important too. Take your time and complete every aspect in as much detail as you can. Be sure to be honest too.
While exaggerations and even downright lies, might drive some initial traffic to your listing, the fallout from negative reviews can be huge and long-lasting. When I travel, I am always annoyed when a listing states that it has a dedicated workspace, just to find that it also doubles as the kitchen table.
Effective descriptions of the local area, including nearby attractions, services and transportation options, can be almost as important to a guest as the facilities within your unit.
Finally, don’t neglect your Airbnb profile. Use a picture in which you come across as warm and welcoming and write a few words to help potential guests get to know you a little.
6. Reviews Matter – Get Good Ones Quickly
Airbnb is largely a self-regulating community driven by the quality of your reviews. Once you have a few good reviews, it is so much easier to attract guests.
This may mean that your first few guests might pay a lower rate, but don’t worry about this, once you have two or three great reviews, you can start raising your rates to where they should be.
While your rates are low, screen your early guests, looking for those with a history of giving regular reviews that typically go beyond two or three words.
Don’t be afraid to ask your guests to write reviews.
I write reviews as soon as a my guests leave and send a message thanking them for being a great guest, telling them that I had left them a 5-star review (if applicable) and asking them to leave a review for me.
As you may know, guests and hosts have 14 days to write a review and reviews don’t become visible until both parties have posted reviews.
7. Communicate Effectively and be Responsive to Guest Needs
Effective communication is critical. I typically start by acknowledging and thanking a guest for booking with us within a few hours of them making their booking.
I would then advise that I would contact them regarding check-in 3 days before they arrived and that I would happily answer any questions that they had before that time. Of course, I had a system in place to ensure that I kept all my promises to guests, even when I was travelling on the other side of the world.
I also aimed to be highly responsive to my guests’ questions and problems. I remember driving 20-minutes from our home to one listing to help a guest lock the balcony door. When there were outages, such as electricity, water or broadband, which are sadly all too common in Jamaica, not only would I contact the utility company, but I would also keep the guests fully up to date until the issue was resolved.
8. Keep your Unit Spotlessly Clean
Every guest wants to be greeted by a spotlessly clean rental unit. While most of us are OK with our own mess, we don’t want to deal with other people’s. If you read a random selection of reviews, you’ll quickly notice that the majority of negative comments relate to cleanliness at check-in.
There is a good chance that you will either outsource this to a cleaning service or hire someone to do this for you. However, as far as your guest is concerned, you are responsible for cleanliness and if they are not happy, they will hold you responsible. You can’t blame your cleaning service or cleaner, your guests aren’t interested.
The best way to ensure that cleaning and unit preparation are being done as your guest would want, is to conduct random checks. This is not micro-managing, it’s making sure that cleaning is being done as you want it done; that it’s up to your standards.
9. Keep your Rental Well Maintained
One of the biggest dangers an Airbnb host can face is the gradual deterioration of their property. It can happen so slowly that you barely notice it.
Guests want to be greeted by a property that looks just as good as it does in the photos on your listing.
Remember that guests will see everything with fresh eyes, which means that the flaws that you don’t notice anymore, will seem huge to them.
I found two ways to address this challenge. Firstly, I asked my wife Monique, who was less involved in our Airbnb business than me, to periodically inspect each unit. Obviously, it helped that she is the ultimate neat freak, but as she saw the apartments far less often than I did, her eyes were much fresher.
The second thing we did was to schedule annual maintenance periods for each unit. We would block out a week in our slowest month of September to conduct detailed reviews and physical audits, paint walls, re-cover and touch up furniture and generally freshen and fix the entire place.
10. Hire the Right Staff and Co-hosts
As you should now realize, being an effective Airbnb host requires time and effort. This means that you may need to hire staff or use a co-host. If you want these people to reflect you and your values as a highly effective Airbnb host, you need to focus on two things.
Firstly, hire the right people. This is critically important, especially if they will have any dealings with your guests. If you don’t already know this, and you get it wrong, you’ll quickly learn the relevance of the saying “hire for attitude, train for skills.”
Secondly, you need to support, guide and train the people working for you. Don’t assume that they will automatically share your standards and understand your needs.
11. Learn to be Empathetic
If cleanliness is the most common reason for negative reviews, number two is poor interactions with hosts. Unless you have experience dealing with customers, relating to your guests is not always easy. This was always a tough one for me, as I am not a naturally empathetic person. However, I now know that empathy is a behaviour that you can learn.
The most effective way to learn to become more empathetic is to understand and accept that other people will not always see things in the same way that you do. This means that in many things there is no right or wrong, simply opinion. I would often remind myself that while I really don’t understand the guest’s point of view, it was how they felt, and I just had to shut up and accept it.
I’d also remind myself, when tempted, that I could never win an argument with a guest.
My mantra was simple, I just tried to treat guests as I would want to be treated myself. However, I always tried to listen carefully, as what I would want wasn’t always the answer.
You also need to prepare yourself for the occasional negative review. It will happen, don’t take it personally and do try to see if there are any lessons to be learned. We received over 300 reviews. Of these, 14 were 4-star and the remainder were 5-star, except for one. That single review was a 2-Star rating from a guest for whom there was simply nothing I could do to please.
On one occasion a leak from the condo above meant that our unit was not ready to be occupied for guests staying with us for five nights. Using the mantra above, I explained the situation in person and offered my solution, which was to put them up in a hotel for their first night. Did this hurt? Yes of course, especially as the issue wasn’t our fault, but I simply had to accept that this was a cost of being in business.
12. Respond to Negative Reviews Effectively
Of course, when you do get that really negative review, it’s natural to take it personally and write a scathing response. After the guest was so unfair to you, it’s the least they deserve, right? Maybe they do, but don’t do it!
Firstly, never respond until you have calmed down. A response while you are angry will never be well thought out. Then when you are ready to respond, remember to whom you are writing. It’s not the unhappy guest. You are actually writing to potential future guests who are reading your reviews when looking for a place to stay.
My structure for handling negative reviews was:
- Apologize
- Accept responsibility
- Make a positive future statement
Here is my actual response to the 2-Star review I mentioned above:
I am sorry that you did not enjoy your stay with us. We want every guest to be delighted and we try our very best to ensure that everyone who stays with us has a great stay. Clearly, we failed on this occasion.
While the mattress in the unit is less than 6 months old, it is a fairly firm one which I accept is not everyone’s preference. I was particularly disappointed that you felt that the apartment had not been cleaned properly. Most guests comment that our units are spotlessly clean, but it seems that we slipped up this time. As a consequence, I will be increasing the regularity of pre-check-in audits until I am satisfied that standards of cleanliness are where they should be.
I would like to thank you for choosing to stay with us and I hope that should you come to Kingston again that you will consider giving us another chance.
How would you feel as a potential guest if you read this response? Especially as all the reviews around it were extremely positive and cleanliness was often highlighted and not one person complained about the mattress.
A word on Instant Bookings
My recommendation is that you turn on Instant Bookings. Your listing will be automatically boosted and you can use the settings to limit who can use the Instant Book facility. Above average prices are a far more effective way to filter out undesirable guests than manually filtering guests based on your own prejudices.
As I mentioned, these are 12 tips that we used and which helped us to be highly effective Airbnb hosts. Are you a successful Airbnb host? If so, what are your thoughts? What about those of you who use Airbnb as guests, do you have any comments?
Author
Nick Abbott
Hi, I’m Nick. Visiting foreign countries has been an important part of my life since my parents moved to Kano in Nigeria in 1977. Since then, as both a military officer and in later jobs I have enjoyed the huge privilege of being exposed to many different countries and cultures.
I am delighted to be able to support my wife Monique and Yes2Yolo primarily by contributing travel articles, providing editing and proof-reading services and being a general sounding board.
