How to find co-hosts?

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Hello All,
We have a holiday home that we would like to rent out, but we do not have time to manage it. How do you find a co-host that can handle bookings, communication with guests, check-ins, check-outs, cleaning, maintenance, paying bills, etc…
We are in Novi Vinodolski, Croatia.
Thank you in advance for your answers.

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I know nothing about your location, but I would search as a guest and find listings that are similar and not too far away and perhaps inquire as to their interest. Somethings real estate people know contacts for this type of thing since their landlord clients may use them.

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Thank you Christine!

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4

I would not trust a cohost to pay the bills. You can set up automatic bill payer for that online. As for finding a cohost, I would suggest you look for Airbnb in your area and contact those hosts to see if they would like to cohost your property.

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Thank you Ritz3! I’ll try this as well.

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6

Post on your local host group and ask for recommendations @Novi

Why would you want a cohost to pay your bills ?

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Thanks, @Helsi! Unfortunately, I haven’t found any local host groups yet.
About the bills: I do not live in the country nor do I speak the language… Still it is something I can solve for sure.

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… and pay close attention to hosts’ reviews and ratings before deciding who to contact and who bypass

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Which city area is your listing based @Novi

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@Helsi in Novi Vinodoski, Croatia. It is close to Crikvenica

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Have a look on FB and see if there is a host group for your country/area

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12

After paying a co-host to arrange all of that, will your Airbnb still turn a reasonable profit?

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I can not say for sure, it is my first time as an AirBnB host.

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No one can say for sure what kind of profit they will make, as you don’t know what your occupancy rate will be, but you at least need to sit down and do calculations for your expenses (utilities, taxes, licenses, service fees, amenities, property management, maintenance, cleaning, etc.) and projected income to figure out what you need to charge per night to make hosting worthwhile.

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You can absolutely say for sure by creating a profit and loss accont and adding in your cohost costs

You can estimate income .

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Yes, thanks. I’ll create estimation and will rely on data I will download from https://analytics.alltherooms.com/
Did any of you used it before? does it have relevant information based on your experience?

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I haven’t used that.

I encourage you to ‘stress test’ assumptions looking at various combinations of a) occupancy % and b) average daily rate. For example if occupancy rate is projected at x%, what do the revenue numbers look like at 90%x? 80%x? Same with daily rates. Then you want to look at combinations of daily rate % assumptions and occupancy rates. In Excel this might be done with a two-way pivot table.

I’m attaching a simple Excel table that does not do the above, but does look at how the co-host management fee affects your gross rental income before expenses like supplies, gardening, any mortgage, real estate taxes, etc. I provided this in another post on this forum where the Host was very surprised by how much just cleaning fees and a 30% management fee reduced rental income before other expenses in that Host’s situation.

I’m not suggesting that the table below is typical. Instead I’m saying to plug in your numbers in such an analysis to see how the fees play out in your situation. For example, where the average daily rate is higher and the rental periods longer the income as a % of gross rentals could be much higher.

Hope it helps you. [By the way these are ‘made up’ numbers; not intended to compare VRBO and Airbnb]

If you’re interested I can send you the spreadsheet by email if you message me with your email address.

Screenshot 2022-11-23 at 10.49.02 AM
Screenshot 2022-11-23 at 10.49.02 AM632×888 112 KB

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Wow, thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
I’ll put together my excel. (i am working with excel a lot, I’ll put together mine in no time).
I’ll check the commission percentage for AirBnb, Booking, VRBO, etc…
Thanks.

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19

Yes, making projections and seeing the sensitivity to your assumptions is key since 'the best-laid plans of mice and men often awry." So it’s GREAT that you are adept at Excel and seem numbers-oriented.

We see too many new Hosts who pop in here who have not done their homework. They don’t know the local legal requirements, best practices to insure their property (liability is a real concern; over 80% of liability lawsuits are about trips and falls), over-rely on Airbnb – whose real benefit is to drive prospects to you not manage or protect your business, are unaware of guest scams, of the crucial dependence of maintaining your property, especially its cleanliness, of the challenge in finding STR cleaners and their expense, of the essential need for a local co-Host, AND they have not run numbers, done sensitivity analysis and often do not have legal or accounting advice.

So, in coming here, asking the questions and adept at Excel you are several steps ahead of many. Good luck as you evaluate the feasibility of renting your holiday home as an STR!

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Indeed, you make very good points. And although I am new to short-term rentals, I am eager to learn. Two things I haven’t taken into consideration yet from the things you have mentioned are the best practices to insure the property (I knew I have to, I just haven’t done my research yet), and how to avoid guest scams. If you could have any starting point on these, I would highly appreciate it.
For those who are also new to short-term rental business and come across this thread by any chance, here are some things I have found:

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