Any Air BnB owners able to give me some advice please?

[FuriousFemale]

DH and I are thinking about buying a small cabin on a holiday park for personal use but also to rent out on airbnb to cover some of the mortgage and bills.

The problem is we live 2 hours away so will need to find a company to do cleaning, linen changes and washing etc.

How do people normally deal with this? I'm guessing (hoping) there are specific companies that offer these services but I don't know where to start looking.

What else would we need to think about?

I don't want it to end up being more hassle/cost than it is worth

There are companies who will manage your Airbnb check ins and check outs. I don't know what they charge though.

Are there existing holiday lets on the same park? The owners may well be able to recommend someone.

Yes there are. We think this one may have been rented out at some point as it has a key safe.

Have contacted the agent so hopefully can get some more info tomorrow

I Airbnb a flat on the South coast.
Check with the site they allow rentals
Cleaning Companies will do this, as well as individuals. I live an hour away, so can’t do the cleaning/laundry. I joined the local fb and Next Door page and found my cleaner that way.
She charges £50 per stay/clean.
Money wise - well it does help. Don’t forget tax, site fees, Airbnb fees, general upkeep. It can be time consuming with bookings, communications, emergencies. Make sure you have a trusted local man/woman who can get there if there is an emergency. Our cleaner’s husband checks things for us from time to time.

All being said, I love our place. We holiday there too.

Feel free to ask questions!

Thank you @Kapalika

Do you pass the full cleaning fee on to the guests? When I've rented Airbnbs there is often a cleaning fee and service charge. Is the service charge for AirBnB or for the host?

As far as I'm aware the site allow rentals as a few of the lodges are on AirBnB but I'll call the site tomorrow to check.

I did think about getting an individual to do cleaning etc but worried if they are ill or have an emergency I can't necessarily rush down there to do it myself (work commitments)

I don't know anyone who lives in the area sadly.

Honestly OP, if you are going to have to borrow to finance the place, you’d be much much better off just renting a holiday place when you want to use it rather than entering the minefield that is a holiday let. ESPECIALLY when you are not nearby to manage and oversee the place. What happens when you rely on someone to do the cleaning, but your visitors claim that it wasn’t properly cleaned when they arrived? Or your cleaner let’s you down last minute? If your paying someone to do any maintenance (because the washing machine seemed to be playing up, or the tap has started dripping, or the window latch has broken) that seriously adds up. Those little things happen all the time and they’re the sort of thing you need to keep on top of.

The expenses you’ll incur, the cost of borrowing and the inevitable headaches make it so not worth it!

I have just started letting my flat out on airbnb (temporarily as have moved in with DP but keeping my place as I'm due in September and want to keep it for a while to have a place for my parents/family to stay when visiting when baby is born).

I would agree with @daisydoesnt that it may be more hassle than it's worth for you. I live literally around the corner from my place. Right now with covid I'm getting a lot of the bookings at last minute, so I think it would be quite difficult organising cleaning and turnarounds for last minute bookings (which most of my bookings are right now). For example I just got a booking yesterday for someone who is going in tomorrow. I had someone else staying who left today so I only had tonight to do the changeover, and I only knew about this yesterday. I think it would be stressful sorting out for someone else to do it.

Thanks all. I've found a company in the area that manage holiday lets so will see what their prices are like

I originally wanted to move to the area but it's a bit off the beaten track so DH is worried that if we lost our jobs we'd struggle to find something in the area (we can both wfh in our current jobs).

The compromise is potentially getting a holiday home in the area. We have a lot of equity in the house but I don't want to sell so looking to release some of that

We obviously wouldn't be at the holiday home all the time so if I could make some money in between to cover site fees and bills that would have been ideal

Hi, I own a holiday home management business. I am more than happy to answer any questions you have.

Self employed cleaner here... I do 4 properties for 2 super hosts.
Great job!
Hosts get the freedom to do their ft jobs and I get regular work.
5 summers so far!

Off topic somewhat but how much commission do air bnb take on bookings? I’m trying to forgive out of its worth the effort of joining as I have a property in a main tourist town that is available for rent but might do short term through air bnb instead.

One of my places charges £85 per night. Minimum 2 nights stay. I get £25...

We air bnbed up until the pandemic and I was surprised at how little they took from the booking. Plus you're shown the money you'll make so you never factor it in iyswim.
Go for it, I really enjoyed it.

What?? No!
If my guests were charge£45 / night I feel like I got around the £40 mark.

@Aprilwasverywet

One of my places charges £85 per night. Minimum 2 nights stay. I get £25...

That's not right They only charge

Up to 14%

Ah hang on. Pp might be taking cleaning and tax off that. Seems more like it and the tax thing is why I stopped.

When you say little cabin..do you mean a lodge

Could you cover bills if there’s another lock down

I’ll be dead honest with you
If you need finance to cover the cost of it and rely on rentals it’s going to be tough

Not impossible but some of these site owners can be ruthless
You must must check the small print
Get everything down in writing
See if there’s a time limit on your little cabin...15 years can go by too quick
Know that if life circumstances change and you need to sell, you could get a pittance of what you paid back
Factor in bottled gas, water rates, electric, site maintenance
Rents go up every year
Avoid park owners with park in the main title
We have a static in N Yorks. Bought outright and used every week of the season.
Rent is low £2k ..but there are no facilities, just electric and water and sewerage
The more facilities, the more rent you’ll pay
You’ll also have to factor in income tax, repairs and refurbs as well as cleaning
Many, many people have lost their life savings when things went pear shaped

It’s doable but do go again with your eyes open.

Can I ask which country it’s in?
We were going to buy on the Marconi site in wales but with covid restrictions Im so glad I didn’t

I had two rentals
One in Orlando and one in france.
I did all bookings myself and worked hard at it and kept them well rented
Naturally the villa was all year round and rented really well but the French cabin was seasonal and mainly the summer holiday but it always made the site rent and I never got anyone after august bank holiday but it only rented to uk guests .

We would go at Easter to open up and refurb and august bank holiday to close down, our main holidays were in Florida

We manage 2 air bnb lets - one very close and one 30 mins away. That one is a pain, mainly because we can't do self check in and people are consistently late - I'd say over 90% guests arrive at least 2 hours after the time they give us. Some don't bother to let us know.

I flex my work around cleans and check ins but dread to think what we'd need to pay someone else for that hassle. We wouldn't make a lot after tax, fees and insurance.

It's been a massively lucrative couple of years but on balance, the hassle isn't worth the money to us and despite a 5 star superhost rating in each, we are calling it a day. I'd rather work more hours in my day job and keep the rest as my free time to relax and socialise rather than clean on a bloody sunny bank holiday, as I did this weekend.

Approach with caution is my advice. Many people I know have tried this and had an experience which made them knock it on the head.

@StealthPolarBear

Ah hang on. Pp might be taking cleaning and tax off that. Seems more like it and the tax thing is why I stopped.

Airbnb don't keep the cleaning fee or deduct tax from your payout

@StealthPolarBear

What?? No! If my guests were charge£45 / night I feel like I got around the £40 mark.

That’s a huge deduction 😱

Sorry quoted them wrong post - that reply was to the poster who said they ended up with £25

yikes that deduction is huge. Airbnb site says they charge the host 3%. they also add a service fee of 14% for the guest ( on top of the hosts nightly rate rather than out of it)

@shewalkslikerihanna

yes I can afford to cover it all without renting it out but if renting it is feasible I'd rather do that and spend the money on other things.

Lease hold is 40 or 50 years I believe. Not sure if there is any other sort of time limit on it (I know caravans got thrown off some sites at a certain age).

It is in the UK, in Wales. I guess you could call it a lodge. Not really sure.

We have found it on AirBnB and they seem to be doing really well with it. Although that now raises the question of what happens to the existing bookings. Would we have to take those on? We'd need a while to furnish the place and it looks like that have bookings all year (unless they've blocked out the dates).

It's early days so lots of figures to work out and questions to ask the estate agent.

We've looked at the site fees and factored those in. Also looked at AirBnB fees.

On my list for tomorrow (well today now) is:

call agent for more details
call cleaning agency for costs
find out about tax
Look at insurance costs
Find further info on the site and any restrictions, extra charges etc

Is there anything I've missed?