Turning my airbnb over to a cohost and going traveling

i’ve advertised on trustedhousesitters.com for someone to take care of the dogs while we spend the winter in europe (wee hah), and miracle of miracles, i found an airbnb host who is bouncing around doing housesits after selling her house.

so she’s going to be taking over as cohost and running my airbnb as if she were me. she’ll stay in the airbnb as a guest the night before we leave, and again when we get back, and in between she’ll live in our house, walk our dogs, answer emails, take bookings, show people around, and clean/restock.

i’ve offered the cleaning fee per booking, or $100 a week ($60 cleaning fee, mostly weekend bookings). i believe a professional manager would want 30% of the earnings (does anybody know for sure?)

i hope i haven’t gotten in over my head, but it feels like it’ll be okay. does anybody have an idea about what kind of contract i should write up?

I’m looking into doing this in the future when I sell my house and move to Europe for long term travel. Check out house sitting websites for other people who’ve done this. There are also a few ebooks you could read in house sitters. I think if you want your property to perform well I’d pay the professional fee. It is a business cost and as such tax deductible. Many people do house sitting, walk dogs etc, for no or very little money, but I think hosting should be properly compensated.

I manage 2 other homes and yes 30% is about right. Professional big corporations charge upwards of 40% and they charge a bunch for repairs and all sorts of other added costs. So 30% for an individual you trust is great. What I do- I run their cabins under their own accounts- they get paid and I invoice them end of the month. That way they get to keep their own account and AirBnB page in case they ever decide to run it themselves.

thanks for those. does anybody have ideas about a contract? just a simple statement of duties and compensation?

30% is tons of money. I am charging my friend 10%, since the guests move in i dont really hear from them, so its kind of easy money for me. And then i just call cleaner.