{"id":45546,"date":"2024-02-07T17:51:36","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T17:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=45546"},"modified":"2024-02-07T17:54:18","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T17:54:18","slug":"a-first-step-into-airbnb-our-early-hosting-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/a-first-step-into-airbnb-our-early-hosting-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"A First Step into AirBnB, Our Early Hosting Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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<\/a>). 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our AirBnB: The Kimberley Hideaway<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Kimberley Hideaway AirBnB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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James Street in Kimberley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Kimberley Hideaway During Renovation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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 \u00a330,000. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Have We Become AirBnB Hosts?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>), 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Preparation Did the AirBnB Need?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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 \u00a31,000 in total, doing the work ourselves:<\/p>\n\n\n\n