Is it worth doing Airbnb?

EmmaHerts

Hey guys,

I had read about AirBnB on the tech sites, it is a system where people can pay you to sleep in your spare room/rent your house whilst on vacation or travelling.

We live fairly close to Stansted airport and set up an ad on Saturday offering our spare room for £10 a night (we set a low price as a trial to see how it all worked). We had our first guest last night. He turned up at 9:30pm and left at 5am to go catch a plane. AirBnB have already paid us as I write this.

I figure it is a handy way to make some extra money without having a long-term lodger.

Don't forget to ask permission from your landlord/lady.

AirBnB do cover you insurance-wise.

fluffpot

Yes we are looking at this to 'cash in' on the Olympics, but might consider it outside that time too as it looks like we might be freeing up some more space in our home soon
Good to hear you had a good experience. Would be interested in others views too

lvm

What a fab idea! I already take in a lodger and no more room for another but once I've saved up the massive deposit I need for my next house I'll definitely be having a look at this. I guess there's more chance of using a box room for temporary stays rather than long term stuff.

Good find!

jumbojuice

This is huge in the USA, and seems like a good way of making a bit of extra money Not sure if its big in the UK yet though

fluffpot

Woo, hoo!

Just had our first confirmed booking - for 5 days in April.

Emma - followed your idea of pricing pretty cheap - if you search for a 2 person room in my area, I'm on the first page. I've offered it at a 'special' price for a month or so to encourage bookings and get feedback. The idea is that once more established, I can put the price up to what is more normal for my area/room - at least double what it is at the moment.

Very excited! Looking forward to being a B and B!

I've also just booked a room in the States for my forthcoming trip

Hoping this will help towards the 2012 challenge

justjustine

I'm considering renting out our spare room at weekends on Air B&B.
Looking at other offers in our area, €75 a night would seem like a reasonable amount.
Has anyone tried this? Do you have any advice?

My two main worries are:

1. We have 2 cats, is this likely to be a problem? (We would keep them away from the guest room and specifiy it in the ad.)

2. The bed in there is a convertible leather sofa, not a real bed. Is this likely to put people off? Should we swap it with our bed for a few months and put the sofa bed in our room?

Thanks for any insight anyone can share

Maysie

I have viewed airbnb site and I think a sofabed would possibly put me off. But i tend to view things as cheap as possible or a nice treat. Which market would the 75 put you in for your area? Do you have freecycle or any sites local where people give things away for free? It might be a quick solve for the problem and you get to keep your bed for you.Well if you have room for a spare sofa bed as well as a bed.

justjustine

€75 would be the higher end for a sofa bed, but we live in a very nice part of town, with easy on-street parking. There are rooms going for quite a bit more, but they are proper bedrooms with a double bed.

Our room does have an en-suite bathroom, which should be a major selling point.

Maysie

Ensuite sounds very nice hopefully you will do well.

Wizzbang

Be aware that you need to tell your house insurer that you are going to be receiving paying guests. They will need to adjust your insurance and premium accordingly. You will also need a landlord's gas safety cert if you are taking paying guests, (or even students!) Most insist on proper furniture i.e. bed not sofa bed, wardrobe not hanging rail and in addition, want a chest of drawers.

You also need to think about how it's going to work with things like wifi- you might need to put a usage cap, or filters to stop people looking at objectional material on your premises. Will you all be sharing a bathroom? How are you going to sort out access- you can't very well shout out a paying guest for being in there too long etc. What about valuable items? You're effectively inviting a total stranger into your home. Also what if they turn out to be a total weirdo, or worse?! How will you handle that? Will you be giving out a key? How will you know if they haven't copied it.

All of this put us off renting out a spare room. But if you're going to do it, think about getting a safe to lock away valuables, locked filing cabinets to put away personal documents etc. Will you be taking a deposit to cover breakages etc?

justjustine

Wizzbang wrote: »

Be aware that you need to tell your house insurer that you are going to be receiving paying guests. They will need to adjust your insurance and premium accordingly. You will also need a landlord's gas safety cert if you are taking paying guests, (or even students!) Most insist on proper furniture i.e. bed not sofa bed, wardrobe not hanging rail and in addition, want a chest of drawers.

You also need to think about how it's going to work with things like wifi- you might need to put a usage cap, or filters to stop people looking at objectional material on your premises. Will you all be sharing a bathroom? How are you going to sort out access- you can't very well shout out a paying guest for being in there too long etc. What about valuable items? You're effectively inviting a total stranger into your home. Also what if they turn out to be a total weirdo, or worse?! How will you handle that? Will you be giving out a key? How will you know if they haven't copied it.

All of this put us off renting out a spare room. But if you're going to do it, think about getting a safe to lock away valuables, locked filing cabinets to put away personal documents etc. Will you be taking a deposit to cover breakages etc?

Thanks, those are all very good questions. Lots to think about!

Most of the ads on the AIrbnb site for our city seem to be for sofa beds, in fact some involve actually sleeping in someone's lounge! Ours is a separate guest room, with an ensuite bathroom. All the other bedrooms are in a different part of the appartment, so maybe we could put a lock or a code pad on the door between the lounge and the rest of our home, so visitors could only access their room and the living room and kitchen. I'll look into that.

Our WIFI switches off from 11 pm - 7 am (to stop the kids from playing online games all night!). I'll have to think about how else to control visitors' internet access.

We live quite close to some major ski resorts, so I was mainly planning to rent to people wanting an overnight stop on the way to/from the Alps. I'll have to think about how to vet people before accepting their reservations.