We firmly believe that there is no single right way to do an Airbnb, as it means different things to different people. However, if you do approach it from the perspective of a financial investment and want to generate maximum return without creating a 2nd full time job for yourself, these are the steps that we personally follow:

Step 1: Finding the Right Property

What’s interesting about Airbnb is that it doesn’t have to be done in a major city nor does it have to be in the downtown area to be successful. In fact, some of the best results are oftentimes found in smaller cities and areas where the housing prices are still reasonable.

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When searching for a new property, there are a few things we always take into account:

• Check legal requirements. Everything starts with this – you want to ensure that you can legally operate your short-term rental, so check the regulations and ordinances in your city first.
• The more bedrooms the better. We typically focus on properties that have 4 or more bedrooms because it will provide the highest return in most (although not all) markets.
• Stand alone home is better than a condo. There are multiple reasons for that – it’s easier to automate check ins and check outs, there are fewer potential issues with neighbors, and it gives you the most control.

We also typically don’t do properties that require extensive work because oftentimes they are not in the city that we live in. As such, the amount of time that we have to spend doing a renovation is a significant factor for us as well.

We’d rather pay a premium but be able to launch within a few weeks than have to spend a few months overseeing a renovation.This is quite a different approach from investors who are focusing on the fix-and-flip style properties.

Step 2: Deciding on a Hosting Strategy

Every market is different and the property should cater to the types of visitors that come there. We generally prefer to focus on urban markets with a wide mix of industry, academia and travel.

Other people will find success in more traditional vacation markets or other areas, so it’s quite subjective. But for us, this is what works.

More specifically, our approach to short-term rentals essentially focuses on renting out the full house as a single listing on the weekends and then renting out the bedrooms – individually – during the week.

The logic is simple:

• On the weekends, there are more groups traveling together and they are willing to pay a premium for accommodations that allow them to stay together.
• On the weekdays, on the other hand, there are many more individuals and couples that are passing through a city – be it for work, travel, or other reasons. So it’s much easier to rent out rooms individually than a 4-bedroom unit as a whole.
• Contrary to many people’s expectations, we generally find that at the right price point, people don’t mind the fact that the common areas and bathrooms are shared. After all, they are paying a fraction of what they’d pay at a hotel.
• From the revenue perspective, this will help keep occupancy high and will ensure that the property is not sitting empty during the week. We generally see occupancy rates of 90%+ across all of our properties when we follow this approach.

Step 3: Setup & Decoration

Once the property is found and acquired, the next step is to get it setup and launched. This includes handling any needed renovations, doing the decoration, and finding a local housekeeper and handyman that will help run the day-to-day.

If it’s local to you, the process is quite easy. However, if it’s not, you’ll need to figure out how to optimize the process.

The specific steps that you need to figure out is:

• How to decorate and furnish the house.
• How to apply for any necessary short-term rental permits.
• How to find, train and hire a long-term housekeeper.

The last point is typically the most challenging part because it’s a bit of an art as much of a science. We typically post a few ads on Craigslist, speak to about 6-8 people and invite 3-4 of them for a trial day to our property. This allows us to see how they work, whether they show up when they say they do, and so on.

For us, as well, we have a housekeeper and a handyman team in every city where we operate. Once the right people are found, we usually continue to work for them for years and after a while, the entire process is quite smooth.

Step 4: Automation

This is actually the most important point and what separates an amateur from a professional host. If you simply launch and proceed to handle everything manually, it can quickly become overwhelming to manage it – especially if you’re running multiple properties.

In fact, it’s almost impossible to really scale it if you’re doing this all on your own.

Fortunately, there are now a number of tools on the market that can automate 95% of your work in a really simple and elegant fashion.

• Use Smartbnb.io for Guest Communication – this tool allows you to automate all of the check-in and check-out communication for your guests. Combined with a smart keyless lock, your guests can come and go without you ever needing to manually tell them how. Moreover, Smartbnb can even detect questions about parking, early check-in, and so on – and send a pre-determined response to the guests, so that you don’t need to. It handles hundreds of messages per week for us and is worth its weight in gold.
• Use PriceLabs.co for Price Management – this tool monitors the demand, competition, and myriad of other factors and automatically adjusts pricing for every single one of your listings every day. It gives you the same sophisticated, algorithmic approach that hotels benefit from when they adjust their pricing to ensure maximum revenue.

At the heart of it all, this is probably the single most important thing we can tell you. If you’re running "Airbnb passive income", automate all of the routine processes, so it doesn’t become a 2nd full time job for you to manage it.

Taking This to Scale

What we love the most about short-term rentals is the fact how scalable it is and how quickly you get to see the results.

We’ve always loved the idea of real estate, but generating a few hundred dollars per month on a property on a side just seemed a bit too slow to really make a dent in our overall financial picture.

With short-term rentals, on the other hand, you get all of the traditional benefits of real estate investing, as well as a very respectable cashflow even from fairly small properties.

We’re now seeing that cashflow from having several properties can typically yield enough in profit to put down a downpayment on a new property every 9-12 months thus further accelerating the pace that you can build your portfolio.

What Is the Telephone Number for Airbnb Customer Service?

The customer service number Airbnb is (585) 743-9778. If you need to contact Airbnb, you can use the Airbnb number, send an email support@JimgCoachingClub.com, or message https://twitter.com/JimGCoaching on Twitter.

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