How to Air BnB
I personally enjoy and find that I am most inspired by friends, family and strangers I have random conversations with.
The next blog is written by no random but a good friend of mine, Veronica Wnuk who is a superwoman in her own right. Among her many other talents of being the Head Chef at Stable Coffee Kitchen, a writer, mum to Wendy the sausage dog and her impeccable taste of white clothing, at around 20 weeks pregnant she also took on re-styling and marketing her mums apartment known as @kirrapointplace to get ready for Air BnB’s peak season.
If you’ve been thinking about how to create more strains of income and have either a spare room or property you’re wanting to make available, this is well worth the read.
Over the past ten years, Airbnb has completely revolutionized the way we travel. Not only has it made accommodation far more affordable and accessible, it has also fostered a much warmer experience for travellers. Whether you’re staying in someone’s spare room, or have their whole place to yourselves, you’ll feel that little bit more like a local, even when you’re halfway across the world.
With the undeniable popularity of Airbnb has come a huge demand for Airbnb properties. This demand has been answered by hosts across the globe, including my Mum and I, who have just begun our adventure as Airbnb co-hosts! While our experience has only just begun, here’s what we’ve learnt so far…
The novice Airbnb Host
After staying in beautiful little homes both locally and internationally through Airbnb, it didn’t take long for the idea of becoming a host myself to cross my mind. I was living in my mum’s two-bedroom apartment in Coolangatta, QLD at the time, and with it being newly renovated, and just a short walk from the beach, it seemed to definitely have potential appeal for travellers. I decided to throw caution to the wind and list the larger bedroom on Airbnb, opening my home up to guests. I was optimistic about what the experience would bring, and figured that if it wasn’t for me, I could just go back to having a regular housemate. And you know what? It was great! I was able to cover the other half of the rent without having the room booked out non stop, which meant that I did have days or weeks when I had the whole apartment to myself, plus I’m not exaggerating when I say that every guest who stayed with me was friendly, respectful and a total pleasure to host.
My initial endeavour as an Airbnb host ended when my partner moved in with me, and we later decided to buy our own home. Mum, living in Melbourne, believed the easiest option for her was renting out the apartment conventionally, and enjoying the stability and peace of mind of having permanent tenants. Which was perfect, until they decided to move out 18 months later, and I was back on Mum’s back about how she should consider putting the apartment on Airbnb.
Now I love a project, and I’m often irrationally quick to throw myself into a new endeavour. The idea of re-styling, marketing and managing an Airbnb was right up my alley, especially as I was about halfway through my pregnancy, and itching for a maternity leave project. We weighed up the pros and cons, looked at what the earning potential could be based on similar listings in the area, and made a bit of a plan as to what the initial set up and furnishing of the property would cost. While there was certainly an element of risk, overall, it seemed that there was definitely potential to make a profit beyond what was possible from a regular rental, and Mum gave me the green light to get the ball rolling.
So why do people decide to become Airbnb hosts?
For my Mum and I, we really liked the idea of becoming Airbnb hosts because we’ve both had such wonderful experiences staying in Airbnbs ourselves. It sounds a bit, hippy dippy, but there’s something really nice about sharing your space and your local neighbourhood with travellers. Aside from that, there is definitely profit to be made from a well managed Airbnb listing. Most Airbnb hosts can charge a nightly fee for their property that works out to more than double what they were earning from a conventional tenant, but of course, there are other costs to consider as well. Whilst previously you may have only had to worry about real estate agent fees, council rates and tax, your Airbnb will have its own list of regular expenses on top of what you’re already paying, including the electricity, gas, water and internet for your guests. Make sure you’re aware of your local tax laws attaining to Airbnb and check whether there are any restrictions on how many months of the year you can lease your property as a holiday rental before you jump in and get started.
You’ll also want to take into consideration the time and money that you’re willing to put into the initial set up of your property. If you’re listing a spare room in your home, this may mean starting with decluttering and reorganising the rest of your house to make it more user-friendly for you and your guests, as well as considering the impact that travellers coming and going from your home may have on your own lifestyle.
If you’ve decided to turn your rental property into an Airbnb after having it leased to tenants, you might be looking at furnishing a whole house or apartment, and while it’s totally possible to furnish and style your apartment on a budget, it’s quite an undertaking.
Creating a stylish but practical space… on a budget!
When it came to turning Mum’s apartment into an Airbnb friendly space, we had already weathered most of the hard work during our renovations a few years prior. When Mum bought the apartment in 2015, it was a bit of an 80s/90s horror story of mismatched shades of cream, dark grey ‘rental friendly’ carpet and questionable tile choices (both in their design and where they were laid throughout the apartment). We both agreed it needed a freshen up, and decided to run in the opposite direction of the pre-existing ‘styling choices’ by painting all the walls and ceilings white, and also laying white laminate flooring throughout the apartment. We pulled out the kitchen and replaced it with a simple design that was ample in storage, and added custom knobs and square tiles as splashback to give it a bit more of a homey feel than the generic ‘catalogue kitchen’ look.
The result was a light flooded space that seemed to double the apartment in size. A year later, we pulled out the bathroom (fish motif tiles and all) and similarly went for a super minimal look, using a vanity and cabinetry from Ikea and a bath, tiles and fittings from Bunnings.
Skip a few years to the present day, and with our tenants moved out, we were left with a beautiful, but very empty apartment. Fortunately, we still had the fridge, washing machine and couch from when I lived there, but everything else we needed to organise.
The beauty of furnishing an Airbnb is that it doesn’t have to include a lot of the ‘life’ objects that often clutter your home and hinder your styling ambitions. We decided to revel in minimalism and kept a consistent theme of white, timber furnishings, beige and natural fibre soft furnishings and some homely touches to make the space feel warm and welcoming. For us, the trick was carefully curating a mixture of furnishings from Ikea, Target and Kmart, which we broke up with purchases from Facebook Marketplace and some op shop finds. The end result was budget friendly, but doesn’t look like a page from a Kmart catalogue. Little styling touches such as decorative cushions for the couch and beds, framed prints on the walls and a couple of potted plants can really elevate the space and add that homey warmth that people look for in an Airbnb as opposed to a hotel room. You don’t need to buy that big $300 framed photograph or a 6ft fiddle leaf fig in a $500 ceramic pot! Save pictures you like from Pinterest or other Airbnb listings to keep you on track with your aesthetic while you’re bringing it all together in a more frugal way. If you’re clever with your choices, you don’t need to splash around cash. Keep your receipts and don’t be afraid to change your mindabout your purchases. It might take a few painful days of running to and from the shops, but once it’s done, it will be well worth it!
For us, the next important step was getting some great photos of our newly styled apartment to help us stand out against other listings. Airbnb does offer a service where it links you with local photographers, and some hosts choose to outsource a professional photographer to shoot their space, however, I think if you’re half decent with an iPhone, you can get a great result yourself. I took all our photos on my iPhone, and then enhanced them using the editing apps Lightroom and Afterlight. I took both landscape and portrait photos, as the landscape photos look great on your Airbnb profile, while I find that portrait photos work better on Instagram.
While it’s hardly essential, and not everyone’s cup of tea, I think having an Instagram account for your Airbnb can be a really easy and effective way to market your property. You can add lots of photos of the space, feature local sites, attractions and restaurants, and also encourage your guests to tag your profile in their own photos of their stay, which may lead to future bookings from their followers.
When setting up Mum’s apartment for Airbnb, I made an Instagram account for the property and did a bit of basic branding through the Canvadesign app. I decided on a name for our listing, ‘Kirra Point Place’, and chose a font and colour pallet, which I used across our Instagram and in our ‘Welcome Guide’.
To gain a bit of momentum for the property, we decided to run a competition where followers have the chance to win two nights accommodation for themselves and 3 friends. To enter, we asked people to follow our profile and tag their friends in the post. Beginning with nothing, we ended up with almost 300 followers and over 1000 people tagged in our post in just a few days, as well as increased visits to our listing on the Airbnb website.
Another way of marketing your Airbnb through Instagram is by collaborating with influencers who have a following that’s representative of the sort of audience you want to attract as prospective guests. We are collaborating with two influencers, one from Brisbane and one from the UK. As they both have substantial followings of between 100 000 and 300 000, the two nights accommodation we’re offering each of them is a really small price for us to contribute for such a significant amount of exposure.
Managing your property
So you have furnished and styled a beautiful space for your guests, you’ve listed your Airbnb online and have written an informative description of your property and its surrounds. That was a lot of work, but there is relief available to you for the next part of your experience!
While many Airbnb owners choose to be hands-on in the hosting of their property, you may not have the time to devote to replying to enquiries, cleaning the apartment and flipping bed linen and towels between guests. That’s where Airbnb Mangers come in! An Airbnb Manager is a little bit like a property manager who you would hire to find and liaise with tenants for your rental property; but they do a lot more than that! Their role could just cover the basics of replying to guest messages and flipping the property between stays, or be as extensive as coordinating professional cleaning services, linen laundering services, social media marketing and managing the price point of your Airbnb to get the greatest possible profit based on the fluctuating demand of your property.
Most Airbnb managers charge between 15 and 20% of your booking fee, and then you’d also need to consider possible extras such as laundering services, professional cleaning etc. As I’ll be managing our Airbnb for Mum while I’m on maternity leave, we don’t have first hand experience to draw on with an Airbnb manager, however, I think it would definitely be a worthwhile investment if you don’t have the time to coordinate things yourself.
Hosting your first guests
With our apartment spruced, styled and live on Airbnb, we eagerly awaited our first bookings. When setting up your property’s profile, Airbnb gives you the option of an automatically generated price per night, which is set by them based on the price of similar listings near by, as well as guest demand and property availability at the time; or you can manually change the price yourself.
After doing a bit of research on similar listings in the area, we decided to manage our prices ourselves. As it was November when our listing went live, I also increased the price of our apartment during Christmas and New Years Eve (reflecting what was being charged by other properties in the area).
It was so nerve wrecking waiting for the bookings to start coming in! Mum was absolutely terrified no one was going to book, but of course, they did, and luckily we had a few big bookings made for Christmas and New Years not too long after we went live. However, we did hit a bit of a lull and decided to make a few changings to our listing to maximise our booking potential. We decided to change our listing to ‘instant book’, which although a bit daunting, prioritises you in search results and is more convenient for guests. Airbnb offers the assurance that guests must have authenticated government ID and positive ratings from prior hosts to be able to ‘instant book’ and I’ve also found that most guests will message you with some sort of question of query, so I almost always liaise with them before they book anyway. We also decided that it was in our best interests to slash our nightly price to fill the less popular dates we hadn’t yet managed to book. Within a week, we were booked out until January (and even received a 15 day booking, affording us the greatest host luxury: two uninterrupted weeks without having to flip the apartment!).
In the lead up to our first guest arriving, I touched base with her to finisalise check-in arrangements and answered any questions she had about the space and local area. When the day of our first check-in came around, I headed to the apartment to give it a final clean, watered the plants, stocked up the toilet paper and left some fresh fruit. It was a bit daunting, pulling the door locked behind me as I left, but for now, that was my job done; and being 38 weeks pregnant, it couldn’t have come at a better time! (At the time of us publishing this blog, Veronica became a mummy again to adorable baby boy Harrison!)