Four Months on AirBnB: 💰How Much We Made + What We Learned
Table of Contents
Airbnb Intro
We are now four months into our Airbnb, and I’m going to go over what we’ve learned at this point and how much money we made in the month of July, 2022.Â
Hello my name is Tyler Ford in Tucson, Arizona, with EXP Realty.Â
In February of 2022, we bought a town home to Airbnb. Over the years we own a lot of rentals. They’ve all been long term rentals, never an Airbnb.Â
I have worked with quite a few clients that have bought Airbnbs and I’m always blown away by the numbers. I did not truly believe that in the summertime you’d have guests and that you could break even, or even be profitable in Tucson, AZ during the heat of the summer.Â
I have been pleasantly surprised… we’ve been able to break even, or even make a little bit of money, in the summer, which I’m going to go over and share our numbers with you for the month of July, 2022 and also share with you what we’ve learned, and some of the mistakes that we’ve made.Â
Our Biggest Airbnb Challenge - Checkout Time
Our biggest challenge to this point, and it was a surprise. Didn’t think it was one that we would have to even deal with has been our guest CHECK OUT TIME.Â
We have had a couple situations where a guest checking out and a guest coming have been the same day turnover, and that’s been our biggest challenge.Â
Making sure we’re ready for the next guest on same day turnovers can be a challenge if guest to not check out on or before our 11AM check out time. Â
We’ve got a check out at 11:00 AM and a check in at 2:00 PM, which if they check out at 11 o’clock, it gives us plenty of time, but we’ve got a couple situations where guests are not gone by 11 AM. We’ve got the cleaning service show up and it creates a little bit of a challenge.Â
We have policies and procedures signed that shows the checkout at 11 AM, but for whatever reason on Airbnb they’re just not respecting that.
So we’ve made a little change. We put a checkout time specifically on the door that they’re looking at every time they come in and out of our town home and that seems to have solved it.Â
We also you the automated templated emails in Airbnb, and so we created a video and an email that goes out and that seems to have solved the problem.Â
To this point, our biggest challenge has been guest leaving on our before our 11AM checkout time. So if you’re new to Airbnb, I would recommend going to Etsy. There’s a lot of cool stuff there. You can have your house rules. And then also we brought another sign that we put right on the door that has the checkout time that has helped to reduce the challenge that we were having up to this point.
Most Important Aspect Of An Airbnb - Cleaning
The one big thing that we’ve learned is the cleaning service is probably the most important thing in your Airbnb because this business is all about getting great reviews and cleanliness is a big part of getting great reviews.Â
Initially, my wife and I, Mimi, were going to do the cleaning and the turnover ourselves. She was going to do it in her spare time, and we would think we would have the time to do it. But we ended up doing quite a bit of traveling this summer, and we had a situation where we didn’t have a booking, we were going to leave for a couple of days, we thought it was going to be vacant, and like a day before we were leaving somebody booked it and there were going to be leaving and somebody else was checking out while we were going to be gone.
So we were scrambling, and it was actually a good thing that happened because we stumbled upon a website and it’s awesome. It’s called TurnoverBnB. TurnoverBnB. It is a great resource site where you put your property up there, you put all the specifics of what you want to be done, and then cleaning people or services then bid on your cleaning job. They tell you what their rates are, and select the cleaner you want to use.Â
So initially we started with one cleaner, and they were charging us $150 per cleaning per turnover. We then switched to somebody else which was a little less expensive. We’re now down to about $110 per turnover, and it’s been great.Â
So if we go out of town, we know that it’s going to be done. But the big thing that we’ve learned with the cleaning services, you’ve got to check their work because a couple of times they cleaned and they missed a few areas, and, again, it’s all about reviews.
You want to stay on top of your cleaning service and periodically just check in, making sure they’re doing their work. I’ve got a camera up front, which I’m going to talk about, that lets me know when they got here or when they leave, even though on TurnoverBnB there’s a whole checklist and they’ve got to check things and say that they’ve done everything, but just because they do that doesn’t mean that they’re doing it.Â
We feel we now have the system in place to automate the cleaning, which is awesome. It’s systemized. It’s automatic. And that has been the biggest piece to our puzzle, which has made things a whole lot easier and allowed us to have the freedom and flexibility to come and go as we please.Â
I would recommend TurnoverBnB as a way to automate your cleaning for your Airbnb.Â
Airbnb Item We Would Not Do Without - Security System
The next thing I want to talk about that’s been invaluable, and I’m so glad I did it up front, and that is spending the money on cameras at the door. With Airbnb you can’t have any cameras in the house. If they find out you do, they will boot you off the platform. So you can have outside cameras.Â
We installed a Vivint system. I did a lot of research. ADP, Vivint, there are a lot of other ones out there, but the reason we went with Vivint is, for the most part, the equipment costs are all about the same and you can finance the equipment costs and roll it into your payment. Once the equipment costs are gone, then you’re just left for the monthly. We paid for the equipment cost up front, and then Vivint had the lowest monthly, so that’s why we went with them. But the cool thing about the Vivint system it’s got the security camera where you can remotely talk to people, you can remotely lock the front door and turn the security on, which is awesome.
The other cool thing is we can control the thermostat from our phone. In Arizona with the heat it’s really important to keep your utility costs down, so we can set minimums and maximums so people don’t abuse the cooling in the summertime and put it really low and spend a ton of money on electricity that doesn’t need to be spent.Â
When guests check out, you can set the thermostat right to where it needs to be. And we’ve just been turning it off and not paying for any electricity when we don’t have any guests, so I would highly recommend it. It’s been well worth the money and I definitely would not do without it.
And the other awesome thing about the camera is we had an issue with the HOA, and they thought it was coming from our unit, in terms of animals and a couple things that happened. Because I see everything coming in and out, I was able to show that video and it definitely wasn’t us.Â
There are a lot of HOAs that allow Airbnbs, but there’s certain rules and regulations within an HOA that you’ve got to abide by. And if you’ve got guests at your property, it’s really important that they make sure and understand what the rules are so you’re not going to get yourself in trouble with the HOA. So that camera actually saved our butt and we were able to prove that, hey, it wasn’t our guest. So again, highly recommend it.Â
Biggest Airbnb Learning Curve - Pricing
The biggest learning curve at this point for me has been the pricing of our Airbnb. And there’s a lot that goes on to pricing it properly so you can be competitive within your marketplace, and I’ve been doing a ton of research. And to this point, we’ve relied on the Airbnb smart pricing where you can set your minimum, maximum, and then based on demand, they price it accordingly and then you can set your minimum stay. So there’s quite a bit you can do with an Airbnb, but it lacks a lot of different things, analytics, and there’s a lot of things that it lacks where you can get more robust pricing with various products out there that tie into Airbnb that price your unit. And so doing a ton of research, I stumbled across what is called PriceLabs, and again, I’ll have the link in the show notes. And there’s like a 30 day trial, and I’ve dove into it and just learned a ton and we’ve ended up switching over.
And the one thing that I’ve learned is I’ve left a lot of money on the table, especially when we first went live. We had January, February, March of 2023 book up immediately. And looking back, I was so underpriced based on the demand and we probably could have grossed another, I would say, three to four to maybe $5,000 had I done my homework front. So moving forward, we’re going to be using PriceLabs. And it’s got some really cool tools, analytics, and there’s just a lot you can do with it in order to maximize your profits and price your Airbnb accordingly. So to this point, I really, really like it. You get a free 30 day trial. We’re still within that period, but the cost of what you pay for it based on the extra income you’re going to make, it’s so, so worth it based on what I’ve seen to this point.
How Much Money We Made In July 2022... Airbnb Profit
All right, so let’s dive on into the numbers. I’m going to go over what we did in July 2022.Â
It’s mid-August, and I’m going to go over the numbers for July. So the total gross rent for July was $2,584. And the expenses that we had, we had property were $613.Â
The utilities are our biggest cost. We had insurance of $72 and 19 cents. And then the house cleaning was $462, and we’re going to get that down a little bit because we switched from $150 per cleaning down to 110. So our total expenses for July were $1,274. So our total net income for the month of July, in the heat of the summer, was $1,309.Â
Woo-hoo! We were profitable in the month of July. And again, I thought going into it I was going to be happy just to break even in the summer months.
And looking at our utilities, the $613, we have Cox for the cable TV and then also for high-speed internet. And we increased the high-speed internet a little bit because high-speed internet is really important. Plus we’ve got the main TV on wireless because we didn’t want to run a bunch of cables, so we needed the higher speed internet. So $205, 96 cents for the internet. The water, City of Tucson, the total for the month for water was $55 and 97 cents. Our electric bill for July, and this is where the Vivint came in to help us control the thermostat via our phone. Electric was only $111.
We paid for Cox twice, because I actually paid for the internet for two months in the month of July because we’re going to be out of town. So our utilities were a little bit higher by $213 for the month. And then the Vivint, the monthly security system, was only $26, which is so worth it. Had we financed the equipment in there it would’ve been closer to I think 65 or $70. Still worth it.
So our total expenses for the month of July: $613, again, for a total net income of $1,309.Â
We keep really good accounting, another really important thing I would highly recommend. We’ve got QuickBooks, and keeping really, really good books is so important. So we’ve got all our numbers. We know exactly what we are. So we would encourage you, the first thing that you do when you get your property is make sure you’ve got your books all set up and your chart of accounts. That way you can know what’s going on each and every month.Â
But again, profitable in the month of July. Looks like August is going to be somewhat similar, maybe not as good but close to.
Biggest Surprise - Last Minute Bookings
A big thing that we’ve learned, which is totally surprising to me, but for the summer it kind of makes sense, is a lot of our bookings are last minute bookings.Â
They’re booking two to three to four days prior to showing up, so they’re not booking way out in advanced. And out of all the research that I’ve been doing too, with the economy changing and people being a little bit uncertain, bookings are not done out in advance like they normally are because people are a little bit more uncertain.
But the other lesson that we’ve learned is you always want to have your place ready to roll.Â
There’s been a couple times where it’s like, “Ah, we don’t have anybody booked. We’ll clean in the next couple of days,” and then, sure enough, we get a booking and we’ve got to rush to get it clean.Â
So the other lesson learned is when a guest leaves make sure you’ve got your place scheduled to be clean because you never know when that last-minute booking’s going to show up. We had a vacancy. We had somebody book at two o’clock, and they were showing up for the same day booking. So again, always have your place ready.Â
In Summary
We’ve got a lot to learn. We’re new to Airbnb and if we can help other people and share in our mistakes and what we’ve learned, that’s what this is all about.Â
If you have any questions or comments about an Airbnb in Tucson, Arizona I would love to hear from you.Â
I wrote an article that may be helpful called Everything You Need to Know About Tucson Airbnb that I encourage you to read.Â
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