Tips for Keeping Your Airbnb Rental Profitable

A rental service like an Airbnb property can be costly, and you may initially struggle to keep costs down. The people who have been in the business for a while will know how to cut some expenses and maximize their profits, but you may have trouble in this area

We have some information that can help you, and this article will target a few areas where your business could benefit by being more profitable and less wasteful.

Have Guests Do Some Cleaning

You can make your guests work for you to an extent, but you don’t want to overdo it. If you set down a list of rules for guests that require them to clean up after themselves and tidy up the place, you will be left with less work to do yourself or to ask your cleaners to do for you. This can be a great cost savings option.

Just make sure you are reasonable with your requests, and you can ask the guests to do things like throw their linen in the washing machine, sweep up the floors, take out trash, wash dishes, and other minor tasks that won’t take them very long but that save the cleaners time.

Hire Skilled Cleaners

You also want to be careful about who you hire for turnaround cleaning. Some cleaning companies will offer better service and better value than others. Be cautious about choosing the cheapest cleaning company, since they may not give you good quality service. You can try out a new cleaning company for one rental property and see how they do, and then you can go from there.

Choose turnover cleaning services that seem to be high value and that offer all the cleaning tasks that you need done. Take time to look at your options and compare prices, reviews, and other factors that are important to you. The faster and more efficient your cleaners are, the more money you save. Most of them charge by the hour, so it makes sense to choose a cleaning service that will not waste time and will not charge you more than you think is fair for the work.

Don’t Offer Too Many Amenities

It is nice to make your guests feel appreciated and to give them nice things. You can provide coffee and tea for them, offer extra toilet paper and towels, give them free shampoo and soap to use, and a variety of other amenities, but you have to be careful. It is easy to go overboard and actually lose money on your property rental.

This is especially important during the early days of your business. You may be tempted to do many things for the guests and put yourself on shaky financial footing. Instead of giving them free stuff, though, you can simply offer good service. Make yourself available to them and answer their calls right away. Make sure the place is spotless and attractive, and keep the essentials stocked. If you can do all of that, you should make most guests very happy.

As your business grows, you may be able to do more. Just keep in mind what the amenities cost and how much you are charging for the rental. Make sure that you are bringing in more money than you are spending and that your efforts are worth it. You should judge amenities by how much they are used and appreciated. This will help you to determine if you want to keep providing some of them or to stop offering some and try something different.  

Post Appropriate Signage

You probably don’t want to be on the property while your guests are renting it, and they likely don’t want you there either. They would like freedom and to not feel like they are being watched every minute of the day. So, how do you keep your guests behaving orderly and prevent them from being wasteful and damaging your property?

You need to put up signage around the property that is discreet but easy to see. It should be informative and helpful and should let your guests know exactly what is expected of them.

So, if you have any kind of appliance that might be unusual, then you should have directions for how to use it. If you notice that some of your guests are abusing your appliances, then they may simply not understand the proper operating method. A decent sign can help with that. If guests are prone to not cleaning up after themselves or leaving lights on or fans operating, then put up some very simple and straightforward signs asking them to turn off lights and fans, tidy up, and do whatever else needs to be done to keep your costs down.

You don’t want your signage to be aggressive or overbearing, but it should address the common problems that you run into. If you fail to place the appropriate signs, then your guests could cause you problems and could cost you money.

Buy in Bulk

Don’t just buy what you need for your rental property. You should buy more than you need. If you know you will need certain toiletries or cleaning supplies or other items for your Airbnb, then try to buy in bulk and save some money. Don’t simply buy what is needed at the time it is necessary. Instead, plan ahead and buy large amounts at once to save on your overhead.

Learn Repairs for Yourself

It can be costly to hire someone to repair each little thing that is wrong with the rental property. You want to keep the place in great shape to make your guests happy, but you may be able to save a lot of money by learning how to do some simple handyman repairs.

This can save you time as well so that you are not waiting on repair people to come to the place and fix it on their schedule. You can take online courses, watch instructional videos, and try to do some of the repairs for yourself.