A First Step into AirBnB, Our Early Hosting Experience

We made our first listing live on AirBnB three weeks ago and have had three sets of guests stay so far (click here to see it on airbnb.com). This blog post runs through our experience of being first-time AirBnB hosts, why we chose to become hosts, what we needed to do to get started and the lessons we’ve learned so far.

Just for clarity, we’re not planning on building an AirBnB Empire. This is very likely to be the only place we’ll list, and we plan to do the management, cleaning and any repairs ourselves. We’re small-timers in the world of AirBnB, and we’ll keep it that way.

Our AirBnB: The Kimberley Hideaway

Our AirBnB is a large en-suite room attached to the back of our house in Kimberley, Nottinghamshire, which we’ve named The Kimberley Hideaway (click here to see more photos).

It’s located right in the center of town, just a minute or two’s walk to restaurants, supermarkets, shops, pubs, cafes and all the amenities you might expect. We’re on a main bus route into the centre of Nottingham and the tram park ‘n’ ride is a few minute’s drive.

The Kimberley Hideaway is a large living room with a wet room at one end with a shower and loo. There’s a double bed on a mezzanine accessed by space-saver stairs. It’s heated with a combination of a wood burner and an oil-filled electric radiator. There’s storage for clothes and food plus a washing machine and ironing facilities.

The outbuilding was here when we bought the property, which for many decades was a butchers shop. We renovated the outbuilding into living accomodation a decade ago, spending about £30,000. We then lived in it when we weren’t away travelling. Tenants occupied the house too, so there was always someone here when we were away, useful for insurance as well as generating an income for us.

Why Have We Become AirBnB Hosts?

Our long-time tenants moved out last December, and we decided we’d enjoy some more living space, so moved back into the main part of the house. With elderly parents needing a little more support from us, we’re doing less long-term travel these days so it felt a good time to make the move.

Hosting with AirBnB means we can generate an income from the unoccupied room. We’ve set our personal finances up so we’re not reliant on it (we wrote a book explaining how), but the money will definitely not go amiss! AirBnB has an availability calendar so we can simply make The Hideaway unavailable for any days, weeks or months we plan to be away.

We could have taken in a long-term lodger instead, but we like the option of being able to just turn off ‘being landlords’ as and when we want to. Over the past 15 years we’ve rented out houses we used to live in, so have quite a bit of experience of being long-term landlords. That way of letting has its own challenges and rewards, but we’ve opted to try out AirBnB and if we find it doesn’t work for us, we’ll look at switching back to long-term lets.

What Preparation Did the AirBnB Need?

We lived in the ensuite room which is now The Hideaway much of the time over the past eight years, when we weren’t away travelling. It was packed with storage which short-term guests wouldn’t need, so we took out overhead cupboards, a double wardrobe and bookcase. This made the room much more spacious and gave it more of a ‘hotel room’ feel. We also did the following, all of which cost around £1,000 in total, doing the work ourselves:

• Redecorated throughout.
• Bought good quality second-hand furniture.
• Bought a new TV and kitchen appliances.
• Bought new kitchen utensils, pots, pans etc.
• Refurbished the wood burner.
• Bought two sets of new bedding.
• Installed a long ethernet cable from the main house’s router, so the room has fast broadband.
• Bought a fire extinguisher and blanket (the property already has CO and fire/smoke alarms).
• Bought and fitted a lockbox, so guests can get the keys without us being here.
• Fitted additional LED floodlights so guests could see in the yard after dark.
• Cleaned everywhere thoroughly, every single surface and cupboard.

We also wrote short, one-page guides to explain how to use the shower, the wood-burner, TV and so on and left them in the Hideaway.

What About House Insurance?

When we contacted our house buildings and contents insurer they advised us they couldn’t extend the cover for short-term paying guests. Not just that, but having paid guests would invalidate our existing policy.

AirBnB provide AirCover for Hosts, which covers us for damage caused by guests and protects us against guests being hurt or their belongings damaged. However, this doesn’t cover things like fire or flood damage. So, we needed to find a new (more expensive) policy which covered AirBnB guests, and cancel the old policy.

The Set-Up Process on airbnb.com

The process of listing the Kimberley Hideaway was simple. We didn’t have to pay anything to get set up (AirBnB add their fee to each nightly stay and take it before paying us). We had to send in photos of ourselves and an identity document to prove who we were, and upload photos and a description of the AirBnB. We also had to write an ‘arrival guide’ explaining how to check in, and decide on a cancellation policy. There was plenty of support to help us decide on all the settings.

One setting we found important for us was the ability to pre-approve guests. We switched this on, so we get to decide who can book it. We’re not control freaks but it’s filtered out some odd requests already, like someone only wanting the place 9 to 5 without explaining why (we asked and got no answer).

How Long Did it Take to Get Guests?

Not long. We set the nightly price to be at the lower end of similar local AirBnBs and within a few days had a two day booking. This caused us a bit of panic, as we weren’t sure we’d prepared everything, but the stay went smoothly and the guest was very happy. Since then we’ve had two more stays, which AirBnB have paid us for, and a further five bookings (all one or two days).

What Have We Learned So Far?

It’s very early days in our AirBnB hosting experience, but this is what we’ve learned so far:

• We have the AirBnB app on our smartphones. This notifies us when someone requests a booking and lets us approve it. We can use it communicate with guests, leave reviews and so on, so all the messages are kept in one place.
• All our guests were quiet and left the place clean and tidy. We left 5 star reviews for them, and they did the same for us.
• Our bookings have tended to be at the weekend. We’ve increased the nightly rate at weekends a little.
• After every stay we strip the bed, wash the towels and bedding, clean any used dishes or cutlery and clean throughout. This takes a while, so we might ask for a minimum of two-night stays in the future.
• One guest burned all the free firewood we provided on a one-night stay. They offered to buy more but we provided it for free. Others haven’t burned any at all. We might provide a base amount and charge for additional wood in future.

Overall we’ve enjoyed the experience so far. It’s very different to being landlords. It’s much more hands-on, with more communication, cleaning and restocking needed. We’ve chosen to do this ourselves as we really wouldn’t make much, if any, money if we paid someone else to do the changeovers. On the flip side, it’s not that difficult, costly or time consuming. Each changeover takes an hour or two at most and we’ve had only one back-to-back booking, so usually have a few days.

Interested in Becoming an AirBnB Host?

If you want to see what you can earn as an AirBnB host, click on this referral button (we earn a few pounds if you later sign up):

Thanks, Jason and Julie