Is anyone here an Air BnB host?

The family house in Cyprus really needs to be paying it’s way and I’m helping my mother out by looking at some of the options and I’d be interested to hear from some hosts.

Not air b&b but have done serviced accommodation via another portal. Did the work ourselves. Generally ok, people did steal things so you need to do a inventory every change over. You will get people who will not be out by checkout on departure day and you / your cleaner is waiting to get started.

Keep your neighbors happy, if parking is an issue let the customers know how best to park etc. We had a lot of repeated custom and allowed people to contact us directly so after a few years didn’t bother with the portal.

We’ve rented out our family house for the last 5 summers via AirB&B. We always make sure we talk to the people before accepting them…..AirB&B blocks this but you have to be creative. So far had no problems ie. A few paint scuffs, broken glasses but nothing much. Fingers crossed for this year too!

I recently (end of May) stuck my little “bothy” on AirBnB. It has gone mental! To date every person who has stayed has been delightful in their own way. I was worried about doing it as it is only a tiny, basic, hut and right in the middle of the farm, but, to date, everyone has been great. Maybe it is because it is cheap, basic, isolated, and has no wifi/phone signal, and no bedding, that it only seems to attract a certain type of visitor. But let’s just say, if it carries on like this I will be very happy. I won’t get rich, but it has definitely been worth doing.

All I can say is that AirBnB, so far, seem to be very well set up, with plenty of common sense checks and balances, and fees that don’t take the proverbial. If you have any specific questions send me a PM and I will try and answer for you.

I’ve always wondered, how does hosting work with your mortgage? Is subletting usually allowed?

Also if your house burns down does your insurance cover it? Or do you get something via AirBnB?

@welshfarmer after seeing some of the horrors on Pitchup I’m not surprised they’re happy with your cabin! Not a word of a lie I’ve seen a 10 foot shipping container in a field and a “popup” site consisting of some cheap sheds in some woodland for stupid money! Also helps that you have decent photos that allow potential customers to have an idea what they are looking at.

Air BnB is pretty good. You can screen your customers a bit before you approve the booking. Booking dot com does not allow you todo that it’s just instant booking.

You should get insurance to cover short term holiday lets.

My wife runs a small holiday cottage. We have only had a couple of messy guests. Took a fair bit of work to clean up after them. She does the changeovers so keeps a close eye on it. If you get a company to do the changeovers they will charge extra for a deep clean and extra rubbish collection/clean up following messy guests.

We haven’t had anything nicked but I’ve heard lots of anecdotes about that.

On the whole most people are really good. You have to change your mindset when you do rent it out. Just to be a little detached/less precious about the place as it becomes a business asset.

We have a small self contained accomodation on airbnb for 2 years now – started in 2020. First 18months were nuts with the staycation mandate. It’s almost as busy now, but there’s a definite trend of last minute bookings which I’ll come onto.

Two questions:As the property abroad will your parents or anyone else be living on site who can manage the property? Is this a buisness operation, or do you just want occasional rentals?

If some one is on site, it makes everything far smoother, with guests less likely to damage anything or at least own up when they do. If not then I’d disregard Airbnb and find a holiday management companies that specializes in homes abroad, and get them to multi list the property across various platforms. They’ll also handle keys/handovers/cleaning and laundry (all for additional fees etc).

If its a family home, that you just want a small return on to help pay some running/ maintenance costs, go with airbnb and self manage, you can pick how many dates are free and who and when guests stay for maximum return. If its a buisness, and you want it full all the time, get a management company to look after it for you. You’ll need to tell them in advance of when you’ll be using the property (some have date restrictions on this) but they will get you a larger return, even with the equally larger management fee.

Now, back to Airbnb bookings, Airbnb changed the search parameters earlier this year across their website and all Airbnb hosts have had a huge drop off in bookings. Properties in London were listed as ‘in the Lake District’ and show in searches for the lake District. One owner who has a property in Dorset kept having enquiries for Dartmoor! Also properties calendars were being effected, when you search for exact dates, the search wasn’t accurate and just didn’t work (so property’s that were already booked showed and others that weren’t didn’t).

We’ve also had a drop off of in advance bookings – but last minute (1-2 day notice) have increased and taken up the slack. This is down to two things, uncertainty in international travel and the website issue. It was so bad a couple of months ago I also signed up for booking.com however they are much more clunky that Airbnb and it’s taken two months to try to get my property listed (Airbnb was about an hour).

Also if your house burns down does your insurance cover it? Or do you get something via AirBnB?

Airbnb has there own insurance built into the bookings, however we also take out seperate insurance building and contents for holiday lets. Wasn’t much in the scheme of things and I’ve heard of some people having issues with the Airbnb cover.