So my wife’s friend lives 7 hours away. She bought a house a mile from ours. She wants to Airbnb the house when she’s not here.
She called a property/Airbnb management company. They want 25% and they want her to repaint the entire interior white.
So the house has really nice Venetian plaster on a couple walls and it’s not my style, and ugly, but looks good in that house.
So she wants to give us 25% plus my ocd wife can make a bundle off the cleaning charges.

Now, from those of you that Airbnb a house, what do I need to know?

I'm an Airbnb user. In fact, I'm in one right now.

People staying for a few days or even a few weeks don't give a shit what color the interior is.

These are the things we care about:

-we only want to bring our clothing and personal items. Everything we'd need in places such as the kitchen should be provided, bedding provided, laundry detergent, dryer sheets, etc.
-gotta be clean. That's self explanatory.
-where do we park? That's a good detail to have. Driveway, street, garage, etc.
-extras are great, don't know where the house is but if it's close to the beach, extras such as an umbrella, chairs and cooler provided are great. If someone is coming in on vacation, they don't want to buy that stuff.
-small extras such as sunscreen, travel size soap, etc. are also great.
-high cleaning fees are a turnoff. You mention you and your wife making a bundle off the cleaning charges. I've seen some people try to charge $125 for a cleaning fee. While it might be the fee for the entire house, I seriously doubt the entire house needs cleaning. We have rented entire houses and some areas we never even went in, we did our dishes and put all the bedding on the washer.
-key to is to price is so it doesn't cost more than a hotel room. Remember the hotels typically have gyms, pools, etc. so that's the competition.

If I was renting out a house I owned I think 5-7 days would be the minimum term. There’s horror stories of one or two night contracts where the renters basically use the property for a party.

Are you saying your friend wants you all to manage the property for 25% instead of hiring the property management company?

If so are you all looking for a 2nd job and being on call 24 hours a day?

I wonder how long your Wife and Her friend will remain friends.

quote:

Originally posted by armored:
I wonder how long your Wife and Her friend will remain friends.

Valid question .

Make sure you put in the hidden cameras you you can sell video of the customers to porn sites. That's a feature of Air BnB.

After a short discussion, we are not going to manage this. Going through what we would likely make each month, not even close to worth it.