Airbnb Host Handbook: How to make money from short-term rental?

Back then, short term rentals on Airbnb made almost twice the money of a long-term rental. My wife helped with the cleaning, I managed the Airbnb app and handled all communications. I felt we were really onto something. At the same time, we had a second apartment in another major Bulgarian city that was just sitting empty. Once again, I was faced with the option of finding a long-term renter or putting it up on Airbnb. Based on the great experience with my initial listing, I went with Airbnb. The apartment was in another city and I had to hire a cleaning maid. However, I still handled all communications. I discovered my initial experience with Airbnb was no fluke. Both of my apartments performed well on Airbnb. This was the early days of the platform in Europe. There was very high demand from guests and very little competition as most other property owners didn’t know about Airbnb.

I discovered Airbnb rentals could be a very lucrative source of income. My apartments always had an 80% or more occupancy rate, were booked up to two months ahead, and commanded great prices. And remember, this wasn’t my day job. Airbnb was my side hustle.

In late 2015, as I was up to my elbows in managing Advomi, I had inherited some money. Since the Airbnb gig was working so well, I decided to invest that money in a third apartment. I bought a unit in a very good location, renovated it, and listed it on Airbnb in the spring of 2016. Again, right from the start the apartment was always booked and commanded a great rate. I was generating profit right off the bat.  To this day, this apartment is the top performer in my portfolio. It consistently returns about 10% a year on the investment.

I was hooked. The entrepreneur in me saw Airbnb as a revenue stream with tremendous potential for growth. Within another year I purchased a fourth apartment dedicated to Airbnb rentals. But this is when I started to feel the strain of running my legal tech business, meeting my family obligations, and still running my Airbnb side hustle. I realized I didn’t have the personal bandwidth to handle it all. What I needed was a system for managing my properties that left me free to concentrate on Advomi and my family. So, I created a system that combined people and software with a set of rules and principles for decision making. My system replaced my day-to-day involvement with Airbnb but still allowed me to generate profit and maintain good ratings with the platform.  I became a true believer in the ability of Airbnb to transform lives. It changed my life my generating additional income and in turn, I changed the lives of students and others looking to make a little cash by helping me maintain my Airbnb business. Together, we changed the lives of countless travelers by providing them with an exceptional experience as they visited our properties.

When I had to spend a year in San Francisco on business, I tried duplicating my Airbnb success across the pond. In San Francisco, I took a long-term lease on a 2-bedroom apartment and sublet the small bedroom on Airbnb. Again, my system worked beautifully. I earned money while living abroad in a top location in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S.

By the start of 2017, I had learned quite a lot about Airbnb. I knew every detail of the platform, inside and out. I had developed a system to manage my properties that required minimal involvement from me, and I didn’t things could get any better.  But they were.

This was when I discovered that Mila, a person I knew through the startup ecosystem, was also enjoying great success with her own Airbnb venture. Like me, Mila is an entrepreneur at heart. She and I became business partners, merged our systems, and started the Airbnb property management company, Instahost. We had such a fantastic start and could hardly keep up with the number of upcoming new clients. Instahost managed properties in Sofia and three other large Bulgarian cities. It was a great run. But after two short years we realized it was time to scale back the business and focus on just a few apartments. Mila started a family and I was focused on Advomi. As owners, we realized we weren’t in the position we needed to be to give Instahost the attention it required. We parted ways and went back to taking care of our individual units. It wasn’t a bad place to be in. Heck, I still worked my day job at Advomi while by Airbnb apartments made profits and required little of my personal attention.

During this time period, I gained an incredible amount of knowledge about Airbnb. I learned from my mistakes and I learned from the mistakes of others. Most importantly, I learned from personal experience. What I know about Airbnb I learned by doing and experiencing.

When I achieved some amount of fame with Instahost, people started asking me questions about how they could make money on Airbnb. I’ve been fielding these inquiries and responding one on one for years. Then one day I decided I should accumulate all the answers to the questions people ask, sprinkle in my own knowledge and experience and create a guidebook for making money with Airbnb hosting.

When my international friends heard the news about the book, they encouraged me to translate it into other languages. Everyone all over the world loves to make money and Airbnb is a profit generating engine when you know how to use it. So here we are! The first edition of this book was written in English and has already been translated into five other languages. Inside, you are going to find everything I know about Airbnb and everything I know about the related topics that are important for your success. I hope you find this information useful. When you succeed, I have succeeded as your teacher.

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Stanimir is 30-years old, a father and a husband. Founder and CEO of Advomi – LegalTech company that provides affordable legal services for businesses and individuals. Founder of “MyRights – The Decoded Law (pravatami.bg)” – a non-profit that promotes legal rights and active citizenship for 200,000 monthly web users in Bulgaria. For his work Stanimir is honored with “John Atanassov” diploma from the President of Bulgaria, as well one of “40 under 40”.