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I own a single-family house in San Francisco – a pretty high-demand market.
I would like to find a roommate who wants to do Airbnb. They would run the business as their own and pay me a flat rent (more than a typical room rental but less than their expected profit).
Does anyone have ideas on what sort of medium will reach interested people? I have tried craigslist, but not gotten replies from anyone experienced.
First you need to set up an account on Air and create a listing for your place.
Then you can look for Co-Host, through Airbnb, who would be interested in your proposition.
I would imagine a live in manager would want free rent and a share of the profits.
Your compensation arrangement wouldn’t interest me as all the risk is on the roommate. Not sure I quite understand the situation – is the roommate renting out your room(s) in the house when you are out of town? Or is there a third area of the house you intend for short term rental? Consider offering the normal rental rate, then allowing the roommate to run the Airbnb for a 50/50 split of the take, or whatever split you can agree on. Make it a perk of the rental – plus I’ll allow you to rent out as the extra space as an Airbnb whenever you want, if you’ll give me x% cut. Agree with Jess, I don’t think you can REQUIRE them to be a full time Air host for you without reducing the rent. And what if they’re a bad host?
Perhaps the problem is that I’m explaining it poorly.
There are 4 sleepable rooms in the house. I would have one, the roommate would have one, and the roommate could rent out the empty two (plus their own if they were away for a bit). They would run their own airbnb business and pay me a fixed rent.
Running the airbnb business effectively would be their responsibility. They could exit by giving 30 days notice.
It will be difficult to find someone willing to take on the risk. I know of more than a few management companies who offered that model initially and every one of them have dropped that model. Plus, u have to consider seasonality may bring cash flow problems bevause summer periods generally bring in significantly more than winter periods. Its also difficult to manage guests and the landlord at the same time in the same house. How about WiFi, utilities, damages? If you’re after a fixed rent, I suggest you just rent out all the rooms to long term tenants.
Yes I did understand what you meant. I think you’d be lucky to find someone who would find that appealing. They would have to 1) share with the landlord 2) Pay above market rent 3) Have to do Airbnb to make things work financially. No thanks.
There was a very successful host here, @AmyB, who was in a fluid situation. She was looking to continue to do Airbnb and who knows, maybe your situation and hers would align. At the least she might have some insight into your market as she lives in the region somewhere.
I’m not fully up to speed, but I’d suggest they pay you a percentage, rather than a fixed amount. They wouldn’t half be bitter if it wasn’t as successful, or they had a quiet month/cancellations.
Sounds like you won’t be there, but use the term ‘roommate’, which sounds like you will be there. Have I missed something or there’s more info you can feed me?
You’ll live in your own home, with a lodger who’ll run the Airbnb? Sorry if I’m being a humperdoo
Actually forget the roommate/tenant, just get a local co-host to do the whole property
I’m a bit confused. If they wanted to do Airbnb, why not rent their own place to do it? Are you planning on charging less than a 3 bedroom rental?
Not sure about the restraints on Airbnb rooms in SF, but I am sure you got that covered.
What I have done in the past in my 3 BR apartment in Costa Rica is get a Workaway helper for the day to day running in exchange of free rent and if breakfast is offered, free breakfast.
For 5 Stars on Cleanliness I gave some monentary incentive. For the helper it usually was the sweetest and easiest of gigs, but it does require a certain degree of flexibility. So great for someone working part time and remotely.
The monetary risk obviously stayed with me, but it allowed me to travel and be absent.
And would you then pick up the slack and responsibility for guests who have booked beyond the 30 days? It sounds like you could get three long-term roommates and save yourself a lot less hassle.
Hi, @blueslippers, I understand your proposition completely. I’ve hosted in that way for a couple of friends of mine, and it worked out mostly fine. They have a duplex. They live in the upstairs portion, and they wanted to rent out the lower portion on Airbnb, contracting with me to co-host. They initially proposed a percentage split, but after our friendship was strained by differences in operational approaches, I proposed they rent me the space and let me run it. They accepted (there were advantages to us both that way).
So I paid them a flat monthly rent, made all of the hosting decisions, kept all of my own profits, and also ate any losses. Any costs that were associated with infrastructure (e.g. plumbing leaks) were paid by them, since they were the owners. Any costs associated with supporting guests, such as bedding and other supplies, were paid by me (and I kept or sold them those items when we ended the arrangement).
I didn’t negotiate the monthly rent amount as well as I would have had they not been my close friends, so I didn’t earn enough to keep doing it. But that’s not a problem with the MODEL you propose; that’s a problem with my strength of will when negotiating on my own behalf with people I love.
One poster above suggested listing the property, first, and then advertising for a co-host, and proposing your model in that way. I haven’t advertised for a co-host before, so I don’t know the logistics of making that work. I suggest getting in touch with the hosts’ organizing community in San Francisco (there’s at least one that used to meet regularly), and using word-of-mouth in that community. Also, there’s a hosts listserv for San Francisco, and you could spread the word there.
Your model is a fine one, as long as you recognize that you’ll need to be prepared to accept a rent amount that makes it worth their while to keep doing it, if you want it to work out longer term. The host will be breaking down the arrangement in terms of hours of work and hourly rate, and they won’t be or stay interested if they’re earning peanuts, regardless of the model. But, there are big advantages to a co-host being given the freedom to operate it as they wish (even if there are a few imposed restrictions, such as quiet hours inside the home).
On this point, I suggest thinking through YOUR bottom line (since you live there too) in terms of house rules, restrictions, and other details, and making those clear up front, so the host is fully informed of what limitations you need. I worked these details out with my friends before we started, determining what limits they needed in terms of quiet hours, numbers of guests at one time, access to shared spaces, etc, since my activities would have an impact on them (noise, yard access, people possibly knocking on their door even if it’s against the rules, etc.). That way, I could assess whether I’d be able to find enough guests that met their requirements and mine. If these things aren’t established up front, you could wind up with conflicts later, along the lines of: “I need unfettered access to my kitchen at 7 am to get ready for work, but there are too many Airbnb guests in there on weekends,” and the like.
Hope this helps. Feel free to PM me.
Amy
Now we’re cooking with bacon! Amy gets it.
Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be enough Amys around. I’m not finding them, anyway.
I was estimating a net of $2000 plus their own housing (value $1200) for the roommate who runs the Airbnb.
Good luck with that.
That sounds good to me, I wouldn’t be able to afford a home with more rooms to rent out on Airbnb but if someone gave me it to do then I definitely would. Only issue would be the person would need to have a flexible schedule for check ins (unless you have self check in of course). I’m a student so maybe it would appeal to someone like that 
If they rented out two medium-sized rooms on Airbnb in a good location in SF (e.g. near public transit, not dodgy) and the place is nice (clean, good repair, well-decorated) then I’d guess the rooms could gross approx $2,000 each. That’s 75% occupancy at $100/nt (assuming something like $85/nt for one person and $115 for two). If you expect $1000 each in rent, the co-host could retain $1,000 each in rent, plus the $1,200 value of their own room. However, Airbnb will take a cut, taxes will take a cut, supplies and repairs will take cuts, so the co-host won’t really net $2,000. The cohost would net more like $1,500 cash and $1,200 in-kind (their room). If they streamline so that the work of operating the two room Airbnb is around 10 hrs/week, that amounts to about $67/hr. Not bad for part time work. All this is ballpark, and based on the place being in a good location and very nice. If it’s not so nice, and they can only get around $75/nt per room, or occupancy rates go down because of bad reviews or high competition in the neighborhood, then they’ll earn less, of course.
I used to offer one of the rooms on Airbnb. My estimates are based on my results, but don’t account for the fact that the city has forced Airbnb to kick all of the unpermitted hosts off the platform.
I tend to think that those few who have the landlord’s permission to get a permit are able to charge higher rates now that there is less competition.