This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
I have been watching YouTube online instructional videos, made by Airbnb owners. I am surprised how some owners have become wealthy (according to themselves) owning many, many apartments and condos they have converted into Airbnb rental units.
One owner said on YouTube that he owns 13 Airbnb properties in Dallas, Texas. Plus, he owns dozens more throughout the USA. He suggests leasing as many apartments in the same building complex as possible, so it consolidates your Airbnb housecleaning efforts.
His negative side to owning so many Airbnbs is some visiting guests have loud parties, which upset the apartment complex managers/landlords. His positive side is he quickly repairs anything needed in the apartment or condo, as many long-term lease tenants won’t fix the broken items themselves.
I am curious if other Airbnb owners reading this, like myself, frown on those owning so many Airbnb properties? Or do you say: “Who cares, as its a way to make a living.”
Do you think these multi-Airbnb owners are giving us one-unit rental property owners a bad name?
My wife and I live full-time on the upper-floor of our home, while our Airbnb guests use our downstairs guestrooms. So, we are always on-site.
Personally, if a multi-unit host can manage them well and give the guests a great experience then by-all-means. I don’t see a problem with it. I just have two rooms in my house and during the busy season, I’m kept, well, “busy”. I have owned rentals and will never do that again but have yet to have a bad experience hosting with AirBnB. I guess it’s what you can tolerate.
He also makes money off of people watching his youtube videos. LOL. Assuming he is telling the truth (and I’m skeptical of everyone who says “I got rich this way and so can you”) I don’t like that kind of owner at all. And I’m probably in a minority but I won’t rent from them either. Those are the same kind of hosts who also don’t care if they violate local laws. As one of them posted here about the new regs going into effect in their town: “now begins the game of cat and mouse with the city.”
There is a good chance this is in violation of the lease and if he gets caught he could lose a lot of money.
In some places they certainly are and they are removing housing from market leading to the kind of regulation that hurts a lot of innocent hosts. I have an anti Airbnb friend who wrote this to me yesterday:
We have a housing crisis in NZ. The PM in her brilliance has announced that the govt, in response, has built 100 (about 1/1000 to 1/10000 of estimated needed) houses in Auckland that will sell for an “affordable” 650,000 NZ, in a place where average wage is lower than US. Here, airbnb is not only a group of young asinine twits making money, they strongly feed a social problem rather than part of a solution to a problem. The # of people in the country at any one time can be 2-3 x the number of citizens, and these people have more money to spend on tourist housing than locals have for basic housing.
As I said, I hate being on the same site/lumped into the same category with this kind of owner and I will try very hard not to give them any of my money. I’d love a site that hewed to the original idea of renting out the guest room, mother in law or basement apartment. But I think we have to face the reality that such a site would not be profitable.
OTOH,
There are many terrible, exploitative ways to make money, who am I to judge what’s the worst?
I really dislike the Slum Landlord type Airbnb mega-listers and refuse to rent from them. We’re planning a trip to Ireland and England in May/June and passed up a number of listings because they were bragging about having “X number of listings around Dublin”, and “largest Airbnb Host in Manchester”…
Anyone with a large number of Airbnb listings is either a property manager or if they truly own that many, they were rich by most standards before they started.
My 2 Airbnb rentals are essentially like working a second job. I’m certainly not getting rich. I can barely juggle a job & rentals. I don’t think it is possible for a host to manage more than 4 or 5 unless they hire out the maintenance & cleaning.
Point being if the story feels sketchy, it probably is.
“truly own” is rarely the case. Such people are typically in debt up to their eyeballs, but making a reasonably large weekly/monthy/yearly income which allows them to borrow more money to “purchase” the things that make them appear wealthy. It can make them really wealthy, but it takes time. In that time, it can also implode and leave them with nothing.
@Im right there with you @Annet3176. I have a full time job, I have a separate house I rent to groups or I rent individual bedrooms. I clean it after work, on my way home, where I arrive late, eat and go to bed.
These people who boast about having X properties, I think they were rich to begin with and they have someone on the premises to clean as necessary they probably pay not much.
I can certainly not manage more, but I know for example that a corporation from California started to buy nice apartments in one of the most beautiful apartment buildings in town and turn them into luxury apartments. which I think is a shame.
Its predatory and not cool. You don’t need to put other people down to be successful. This investor is disrupting neighborhoods with what he’s doing. He can make a quick buck doing this but this is what causes the knee-jerk reaction to Airbnb and militant tenants who will interrogate Airbnb guests to find out rogue hosts. Random guess but this host doesn’t stay at his own properties. I’ve stayed at places like that and it reminds me of a John Wayne movie when he walks into a bar and everyone is staring at the cowboy.
If it’s any consolation: being a superhost on airbnb is a full time job you can’t do if if you are managing 30 properties.
Requirements and expectations are so high now, I think you can make a good living as a superhost if you manage your property yourself. If you need to delegate, maybe have 3-4 properties max.
Anecdote. Several week ago, I went downstairs from my (gorgeous) airbnb apartment to find a russian-american lady completely lost in front of my property. She had rented on airbnb with a property manager. They did not communicate welll, her taxi dropped her off at the next over property, luckily I was there and I was nice to help her find her realtor. Otherwise she might have had to go to the hotel next door.
So take what you can , see if your property is interesting to the community, if so go for it and don’t look at what forums or other people say.
@don_burns, I personally don’t include exterior pics of the house in the listing. I send them separately via email or text before the guests arrive. The reason is I don’t want my neighbors to think that I am getting rich on this. The fewer know the better.
Although I suspect everybody knows by now, since I had an inquiry from a guy who lives 2 blocks away asking if he, his wife and the cats can rent my house for 2 months since they are remodeling their house and if yes if I’m willing to negotiate the price. I politely declined, saying that I already had bookings and that this is a no pet house. But this just shows that people know already.
Good call. I don’t include a picture of the front of the property either. I don’t want to get setup for regulation crackdowns, nosy neighbors, stalkers or whatever else you can find on the Internet.
Yep. Usually it is a fleet of illegal rentals in violation of the lease. OR a charismatic manager who builds an empire by preaching the AirBNB miracle to investors who buy the properties that he/she manages.
Ha ha, it’s surprising how quickly folks find out.
We are in a small Spanish city and our neighbours know what we do. To the surprise of a lot of folks they have been supportive, to the extent of giving us stuff like some large lanterns for our central patio and when we got our new front doors, the neighbour across the street came over with a gift of a large brass pomo (like a big door knob).
Maybe they’re just pleased that we took on a derelict 250 year old building and breathed life back into it, I’ve no idea. I’ve heard, and read, some absolute horror stories (ok, all anecdotal) of how foreigners are treated in some areas of Spain when they do as we did.
As it stands just now, our building is a full time job - not the mundane day to day check in/out and cleaning of the apartments, but finishing off our overall restoration project!
I just hate it when folk say “oh well, it’ll keep you out of trouble”.
I dislike the high volumes hosts and properties for a helluva lot of reasons, not least of which is they aren’t really in the hospitality business. They are in the roof-over-your-head business.
There are folks here, however - and maybe they don’t fall into the “high volume” category - who seem to have a lovely business with a small stable of properties, and are clearly dedicated hosts who take great pride in their properties and the guest experience. There is a spectrum, but the guy whose YouTubes you watched sounds like the exact kind of operator I avoid like the plague.
The high volume people ruined Airbnb, if you ask me. Ruined the brand, ruined the expectations and like @KenH, I look for small, unique properties when booking an Airbnb for myself.
All front door and nae carpets, as my mother used to say.