I’m an empty-nester that I met a local airbnb host on a date. The lightbulb went off off almost the second he started talking about airbnb. Plus it’s been a great way to supplement my income!
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Besides some money coming in, I think for me just meeting awesome folks and staying friends with them afterwards is a big plus. We’ve met people from all over the world. Also observing other cultural norms/traditions makes you adopt more of a worldly perspective.
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So that I can travel.
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I started with a thought in mind to pay for a couple of airtickets to help out with my travels. I traveled with Airbnb for years but did not know how much hosts make.
I made quite a bit the very first week and kept on going . It’s been 15 months and was a life changing for me
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The money, and as a replacement for roommates.
I am a millenial who owns a four bedroom home. I used to rent out three bedrooms while I was in grad school and living on a TA salary. As I approached 30, I got more intolerant of the bad behavior in roommates. They always paid, but some were messy and rude and wanted me to be their mommy. I finished grad school and phased out the roommates, but didn’t want to give up using my home as an income generator. Now I make more off my guest room (that thankfully has a separate entrance) than I did with three roommates!
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I want to meet interesting people from all over the world.
The best vacations I ever had were those where I really got in contact with locals. I’d never book an overpriced resort again!
I want to give similar experiences to my guests.
…and the income is nice as well.
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Money, power and women. Haha nah just for money, plus I find it very fun. 
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We have little to no income for the last few years and not old enough for SS. We rent out our entire home via ABB and VRBO to help pay expenses.
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We did it because ours is a two-unit building, and while we never really wanted to rent the other unit out full time, we can’t yet afford to de-convert it to a single-family home (if we even want to, which is debatable). After having it vacant for a while, with just our excess things in it, we decided “hey, we pretty much have an almost fully furnished place down here!” Then when my husband’s mother died, we were left a bunch of furnishings and they also went into the downstairs unit. It was at that point that it didn’t make sense NOT to.
My husband never thought it would work–but I pushed the agenda and did all of the set-up–and here we are, 2.5 years later–and still so far, so good. 
Now I’M the one getting burned out! Haha. But as someone here recently said, just look at the “We have transferred $XXX into your account” and it’s salve on a lot of wounds.
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Hello, new here. This is a terrific forum.
We have a triplex 2 blocks from a large/private university. When we bought the place last year we inherited 2 tenants and one moved out during escrow closing. So we did a rather large remodel of the open unit preparing it for student housing. We got it completed just in time … for the end of the school year, that is!!! We didn’t want to put long-term tenants in there since our business model is for students so decided to put it on ABB until the students return in August. May was our first full month and we made more with it than we’ll ever do renting to students, but that’s ok (I have a heart for students as I was once a College Mom helping my kids look for housing.) Another unit just opened up so we’ll be remodeling it for students as well. Our business plan is now to rent to students during the school term, and ABB the units when school is out.
We still have one of the inherited renters in the downstairs unit and he is a pain. We evicted him last week and it’s been ugly since. I agree with a poster who said that our ABB guests are so much nicer than the long-term, entitled people who begin to believe they are the owners and you are the annoying tenant!!
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To be able to take the island to the vision I first had in mind, which was beyond my budget. The methodology as to how to attract guests from far-away places beyond those that stay in the local hotels was a real discovery; I had never heard of AirBnB, VRBO, etc., nor had a blessed clue how such booking agencies worked. In many ways, it is the best of two worlds (financially and culturally).
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I was on vacation in Vietnam with a friend in 2008 and the entire time she was dealing with ‘air bnb’. I couldn’t understand what would be more important than a much needed vacation, then she told me Air was essentially paying for her vacation. Light bulb moment for me!
I was traveling about 20 days/month for work at that time and decided to give this Air thing a GO and havent looked back. Mind you dont Air a rental! See my story in another post
Air income paid for our vacation home in Wine country(air rental), soon to be new vacation home in Palm Springs(will be air rental), many vacations, and for me not to have to worry about $$ while recovering from major surgery and not working.
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I am widowed as of 2006 with a daughter. Back in 2010 I was for the second time on Welfare and in danger of losing my home when I stumbled upon Airbnb on Facebook. I had a listing up in no time. A week later I had my first reservation. Within a month I was off of Welfare. In 2015 my mortgage was paid. I haven’t hosted since March 15, 2020 because of Covid. I have done renovations and am in the process of setting up the two listings again to receive guests once I know how things are going to go with Omicron variant. Financially we are afloat due to my live in boyfriend and my daughter who lives with us. Nervous about reopening.
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We purchased a home to retire to but retirement dates changed. We didn’t want to pay two mortgages and property taxes for two houses so we decided to make our future retirement home into a short term rental. It’s worked out well, better than we expected.
As this is a thread from 2016, I think it’s about time to close this. 
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To have a vacation home I’d use from time to time that would at a minimum significantly reduce the overall cost to own, realistically - would pay for itself , and cautiously optimistically would create a bit of profit too
It is now.
… … … …
JF
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