My partner grew up with his family owning a traditional bed and breakfast and was very used to sharing his home with others. When we first moved in with each other, he suggested we rent our spare room to become our Airbnb hosts.
I was hesitant at first.
It was 2017 and Airbnb’s popularity was exploding. We’ve used it a few times ourselves on trips, but opening our house to guests was a bit daunting.
At the time we were living in Manchester which was very close to Manchester United’s Old Trafford football stadium and so my partner was convinced there would be demand.
Of course, I was worried about the presence of strangers in our house. Will it be awkward or weird? The house was a small balcony with two bedrooms with only one bathroom so regular contact with guests seemed inevitable.
I unenthusiastically agreed to give it a try after temptation by my partner under the promise that any money we made from the project would be saved for the purchase of a new home planned for us the following year.
Since you’re about to find out, I’m happy to report on its success and something we really enjoy. So how do you properly become an Airbnb host?
Create the shop
As part of my reluctance to agree to the scheme, it was agreed that my partner would take care of the business aspect (setting up our Airbnb profile, managing reservations, and contacting guests) and I would take care of the decor and do my best to offer a hotel-like experience.
Setting up in the app was really easy and they guide you step by step. Our offer was that guests could access a double bedroom, shared bathroom, kitchen and separate living room for £45 a night.
If you do not want people to use your kitchen, say that this is not a problem as indicated on your profile. You’ve entered your address and the facilities you have on offer and they suggest a price for a one night stay (although you can decide which rate you want).
You include some information about the property, the local area, and who you are as a host. This is the place to sell your list. We highlighted in our description our proximity to Old Trafford, easy transport links and that the city center was a 15 minute drive away.
(Photo credit: Joe Lemos)
I designed the room to take pictures so that guests know what to expect before booking. Pictures are another opportunity to really make your listing shine so we’ve put a lot of effort into getting the best angles, as you might see in our professional hotel promotional photos. We love to travel, so when it came to our offer, I thought what I’d like to see if I booked somewhere – tidy rooms, elegant design, white bed linen.
One of the things that helped encourage me to put our spare room on Airbnb is that you can set your own rules for visiting. You can specify things like check-in and check-out times, and minimum nights of stay. There is no obligation to accept anyone you don’t want, and how much interaction your guest can expect is your call.
All guests are verified as real people before they can book and you can see guest reviews from their previous visits before agreeing to let them stay. Airbnb already provides insurance in case someone damages your property and also has 24 hour support in case there is a problem. Everything is connected with your guest through the app, and Airbnb takes care of the financial side of things, so no cash has to be changed.
We welcome our first guests
We were really worried about receiving our first guests and didn’t know what to expect.
We’ve prepared the guest bedroom and created a small welcome document for things like a Wi-Fi password, general house rules, and local amenities. When we greeted a guest, we gave them a quick tour of the house and after some general chatting we figured out why they were visiting and made recommendations tailored to their likes.
I was always worried that the residents would be ‘cranky’ and make us feel uncomfortable, but I quickly realized that the guests should trust us as much as we should. Both parties agreed to respect each other and their space. For example once the guests arrived, the spare room became their place that we would never enter.
(Photo credit: Joe Lemos)
Positive experience (mostly)
Soon we started getting guests from all over the world to join us and it was really a pleasure to meet and get to know these people. Most guests do not spend much time at the property because they usually visit your site for a reason or to explore the area.
Normally, we only really see our guests at check-in, but sometimes with people who stayed on longer visits we dined together or shared a bottle of wine with them, once we got to know them better. We even saw files undo Finally with one of our guests!
When we moved home, we decided to continue hosting on Airbnb because our new property was a better fit for hosting. Guests here had their own bathroom and entrance. The bedroom was also much larger which meant we could give our guests the option of adding an inflatable bed, doubling the number of people we could accommodate and thus maximizing our profit potential.
In our nearly three years of being hosts, we’ve had very few issues with guests, but it does happen occasionally. Aside from some accidental damages (which Airbnb covered) or spending too much time in the bathroom, the worst we had was a last minute booking for a group of four people in their early twenties who had just traveled in Manchester.
Their body clocks were in a different time zone so most of the time they sat talking and laughing and keeping us awake until 3am… It took several attempts to get them to calm down but in the end they did and when it came to their review we politely detailed what happened so that future hosts would be aware with it. They actually asked us if they could stay the next night too, but we quickly refused!
(Photo credit: Joe Lemos)
The best benefits
The amount of money you make entirely depends on your location and your offer. We made up to £700 a month by renting our spare bedroom out on Airbnb during the most popular months. The way I started to look at it was kind of like you were getting paid to do chores like cleaning rooms and doing bed linen.
Another positive for us was when we got “Superhost” status (from being consistently good hosts), which meant higher priority menus and vouchers to use on our private travels away. We also encouraged another friend to do the same with his spare room downtown and got a referral fee.
We really enjoyed doing it and couldn’t recommend it enough. Earning money from our spare room and sharing our space on our own terms? It’s a decent income that works for us.
