Management fees might kill.
We've done a few. It's hard to want to have a vacation place and rent it out too. Need to decide one or the other.
Obviously, if you can rent for $400-500/night you gonna exclude the riff-raff. Requiring 3-4 night rental also helps, excluding the idiots who come in and trash it for the weekend.
Been there and done it. I aim for high income rental and cut my losses if I don't get it.
My BnB properties were just outside of Whitefish Montana, view of Glacier Park, Lake front with fishing, private setting, blah, blah, blah.
Rents were on the high side, getting clients was never a problem.
It was getting quality services that I found difficult for the first year.
The places have to be cleaned, linens had to be washed beds had to be made all in timely manner.
With clients leaving at 11am and the next ones arriving at 3pm it gave the cleaning services a 4 hour time slot to get this done.
Good luck making that happen.
I'd suppose if you lived next door, did everything yourself and valued your time at zero it could be different.
There are cleaning services that specialize in BnB services, first couple I had would make it happen about half the time, the rest the time they would either be late or early.
I Didn't keep either of those services very long. I also started adding in a down day between clients to assure the cleaning would get done.
Third company seemed to be a charm, they always showed up on time, they used teams of two or three, I think that was just to insure one of them would make it there in a timely manner. Whatever their reason was, it worked.
I showed up in Montana after using them for a few months and started inspecting the units myself. Their work sucked, there would be food crumbs in the back corners of the kitchen counters, the frig and ovens weren't getting cleaned well enough and occasionally I could find a human hair in a sink or tub.
I'd never had a complaint but this wasn't satisfactory for me.
I had a recently retired lady who had taken up residence in one of my efficentcy units, she'd kept extending her stay, she'd been there a few months. I chatted her up and cut a deal, she'd do the cleaning in exchange for a deeply discounted rate for her unit.
I'll take quality over quantity any day of the week!
It was a farm like setting on acreage, we turned under a 75x75 area and she put in a vegetable garden, it was picture perfect.
She got eggs from a local couple down the lane from us, my clients would now arrive to a basket of farm fresh eggs and produce, a bottle of wine and a sparkling clean rental. In the off season she'd bake and exchanged the produce with fresh baked pastries and cookies, problem solved, I had rave reviews on Airbnb up to the day I sold the property.
I had more people staying for a week or two than just a few days, it's a vacation destination area, it's just the way it rolls there.
Those type of bookings create a day or two gap here and there.
I also had monthlies that would stay the entire summer or be in town on jobs that paid daily predieums, some of them stayed for up to six months at a time. I discounted the monthlies, it was worth it, just less hassle, less wear and tear.
Funny thing was with the unit my cleaning/resident gal stayed in at a deep discount, I'd also discounted the rates on that unit when I was renting the five out on a yearly basis in exchange for mowing and grounds maintenance which I was now paying for with the BnB deal going on, so that was a added expense.
Winter time brought snow removal, that was also a added expense, with my yearly renters it was their problem to plow snow.
Basic homeowners insurance is more exspensive if you rent as well.
The income from these rentals is all taxable, so the fed's and state government get their share too.
All these added costs combined with various discounts and down days lets a good bit of air outta that BnB dream bubble.
Like I'd stated in my first post, at the end of five years with five units the real BnB profits equaled the income one would experience with yearly rentals but without the added hassles of the BnB show.
With my regular yearly rentals my tenants have more of a tendency to care for the properties as if they were their own, you don't get that with BnB clients.
The only way I could see going BnB a reasonable choice is if you wanted to use the property yourself a few select weeks a year and generate income at the same time.
