Air BnB management

[Louis Balfour]

We've 20 or so flats that we are converting to serviced accommodation and we are looking at the viability of managing them in-house versus getting a firm in to manage them.

I have spoken to a company today who want 20% of the revenue in return for doing everything. I need to tie down exactly what "everything" means, but that is the headline offer.

Does anyone here farm out management of their Air BnB place(s)?

[t400ble]

What area are they in?

[Louis Balfour]

t400ble said:

What area are they in?

Central Nottingham.

[InformationSuperHighway]

For that number I can't see how doing it in house is viable.

That monday morning quick turn around on 15+ properties will be impossible for 1 person to do. Depending on what 'everything' is like you say.. I think farming out is the only option at that quantity.

Any idea what the 20% is in GBP vs the cost of an employee?

[Countdown]

InformationSuperHighway said:

For that number I can't see how doing it in house is viable.

?

Surely it depends on checkout/ check-in times and what the turnover of rentals is?

Let’s say checkout is 11am and check in is 3pm. That gives 4 hours for turn around. Then it depends on how many flats are being vacated each day. I.e just because there are 20 flats doesn’t mean all 20 are on one-day lets (and therefore need cleaning every day for the next tenant)

[Countdown]

20% of the revenue seems a bit of a nonsense.

The revenue for 1 flat let for a week is the same as 7 flats let for a day. However there will be 7 times as much work for the latter.

[skwdenyer]

Louis Balfour said:

We've 20 or so flats that we are converting to serviced accommodation and we are looking at the viability of managing them in-house versus getting a firm in to manage them.

I have spoken to a company today who want 20% of the revenue in return for doing everything. I need to tie down exactly what "everything" means, but that is the headline offer.

Does anyone here farm out management of their Air BnB place(s)?

Out of interest, how does the judgement in the Bermondsey Exchange Freeholders Limited case impact you? Or is this 20 odd units in a building you own?

[otherman]

InformationSuperHighway said:

For that number I can't see how doing it in house is viable.

That monday morning quick turn around on 15+ properties will be impossible for 1 person to do. Depending on what 'everything' is like you say.. I think farming out is the only option at that quantity.

Any idea what the 20% is in GBP vs the cost of an employee?

But airbnb's don't all turn over on the same day. They turn on any day of the week, depending what's booked. I agree about an employee though, sounds like the better option vs 20%.

[wisbech]

In house is viable, but you will obviously need more than one person.

- holiday cover/ maternity cover/ weekend cover/ sick leave/ deep cleans etc

Plus someone to actually take time to co-ordinate the rosters/ cleaning supplies/ laundry/ guests calling up to complain there are no coffee capsules. Some weeks you will need 40 hours plus of work on a Monday, and none on the Tuesday. So you need 'zero hour' staff who are OK to turn up on short notice. Basically the housekeeping department of a small hotel

You can almost certainly do it cheaper, but you'll need someone whose willing to deal with the above workload as 'head of housekeeping' I would think

[GT03ROB]

What do you have "in-house" to do this?

If in house means you & the missus it's probably a non-starter, but I'm sure you know that.

If in house means you also own a cleaning business it clearly is.

[Louis Balfour]

The flats are spread over several buildings, which we own.

We have people who work for us on a self-employed basis, but we would have to employ someone full-time, I think, if we were going to do it ourselves.

One risk I see is that all the flats are in the same area and we may end up competing with ourselves.

I am a bit tempted to let someone manage them for a while and see how it goes.

[RiseUp]

My wife ran an Airbnb servicing business and accumulated 30 properties within 6 months. Her service fee was 18% and was very much all inclusive. The owner did nothing other than collect the earnings. She ran the bookings, check ins, outs, cleaning, scheduling etc. She ended up needing to employ several cleaners to ensure a tight schedule was kept. Pretty lucrative in the end for her, she sold it to a rival business in late 2019.

[Countdown]

RiseUp said:

My wife ran an Airbnb servicing business and accumulated 30 properties within 6 months. Her service fee was 18% and was very much all inclusive. The owner did nothing other than collect the earnings. She ran the bookings, check ins, outs, cleaning, scheduling etc. She ended up needing to employ several cleaners to ensure a tight schedule was kept. Pretty lucrative in the end for her, she sold it to a rival business in late 2019.

Did the 18% include the cost of the cleaners? If so that sounds like an absolute bargain.

[RiseUp]

Countdown said:

Did the 18% include the cost of the cleaners? If so that sounds like an absolute bargain.

No, the cleaning fee was separate and she inflated the price to cover the cleaners. From memory I'm pretty sure she ran at 91% occupancy and the owners were very happy. The super host status was a big deal and the apartments she ran seemed to rank well.

[Louis Balfour]

RiseUp said:

My wife ran an Airbnb servicing business and accumulated 30 properties within 6 months. Her service fee was 18% and was very much all inclusive. The owner did nothing other than collect the earnings. She ran the bookings, check ins, outs, cleaning, scheduling etc. She ended up needing to employ several cleaners to ensure a tight schedule was kept. Pretty lucrative in the end for her, she sold it to a rival business in late 2019.

18% of gross revenue?

We have found someone who wants to run them, currently they service Air BnBs, so have a network of cleaners, housekeepers, handymen etc. I am trying to work out how to remunerate them.

My gut feeling is a percentage of net revenue. i.e. after platform fees. That way there is an incentive to develop direct bookings through sources other than the major platforms. It is also quite transparent.

They are currently sourcing stuff for us. If they are doing so in order to get the places let and to start receiving revenue I am thinking that I don't need to pay them for doing it.

Does this sound like a reasonable plan? If so, what percentage would strike a good balance between keeping them motivated and keeping us earning appropriately as the property owners? Those are the questions I am wrestling with at the moment.

[22s]

I appointed a firm on Thursday to do this for a flat in London so been looking into it in a lot of detail.

I have a very busy day job so was completely unfeasible for me to manage the flat myself. I had actually appointed someone else earlier in the week, but ended up firing them before they even started.

I am paying 14% of net revenue.

This includes:

- Lockbox installation
- Booking management
- 24/7 emergency line
- Professional photos
- Listing / pricing management on Airbnb and Booking.com
- New toiletries and linen every changeover
- Online dashboard to check listings etc


They seem good so far... Listing next week so time will tell...

[skwdenyer]

22s said:

I appointed a firm on Thursday to do this for a flat in London so been looking into it in a lot of detail.

I have a very busy day job so was completely unfeasible for me to manage the flat myself. I had actually appointed someone else earlier in the week, but ended up firing them before they even started.

I am paying 14% of net revenue.

This includes:

- Lockbox installation
- Booking management
- 24/7 emergency line
- Professional photos
- Listing / pricing management on Airbnb and Booking.com
- New toiletries and linen every changeover
- Online dashboard to check listings etc


They seem good so far... Listing next week so time will tell...

A question for the AirBnB operators - how do you get on with lockboxes and insurance? My limited experience so far is that the codes don't get changed between bookings, so anyone with the code (or frankly anyone who had the key to copy) can just come in any time they like.

I'm really surprised there aren't more problems (although I've heard plenty of horror stories). I'd have assumed that - at a minimum - one should have (a) keys that can't be copied without authorisation, and (b) whoever does the changeovers changing the lockbox code each time. But it seem this just isn't done.

[Louis Balfour]

22s said:

I appointed a firm on Thursday to do this for a flat in London so been looking into it in a lot of detail.

I have a very busy day job so was completely unfeasible for me to manage the flat myself. I had actually appointed someone else earlier in the week, but ended up firing them before they even started.

I am paying 14% of net revenue.

This includes:

- Lockbox installation
- Booking management
- 24/7 emergency line
- Professional photos
- Listing / pricing management on Airbnb and Booking.com
- New toiletries and linen every changeover
- Online dashboard to check listings etc


They seem good so far... Listing next week so time will tell...

When you say 14% of net revenue, do you mean net of platform fees? Is that plus VAT?

[Allegro_Snapon]

skwdenyer said:

A question for the AirBnB operators - how do you get on with lockboxes and insurance? My limited experience so far is that the codes don't get changed between bookings, so anyone with the code (or frankly anyone who had the key to copy) can just come in any time they like.

I'm really surprised there aren't more problems (although I've heard plenty of horror stories). I'd have assumed that - at a minimum - one should have (a) keys that can't be copied without authorisation, and (b) whoever does the changeovers changing the lockbox code each time. But it seem this just isn't done.

We arrived at our April holiday (Trip Advisor, Wales) in 2019, a location we'd stayed many times since 2016, to find our lockbox open with no keys in! Tried the entrance to the flat complex (five rental flats off one vestibule) to find it locked. We rang the owner who was a bit surprised and thought it could only think that the cleaners has come back to do some last minute work and gave us their number.

We rang the cleaners, no they'd put their key back in the box we were to access, no idea why box was open and key missing.

At this point, an American couple come out the vestibule and ask us do we understand how "UK keys work". Turns out they'd opened our flats lockbox and taken our keys which worked on the vestibule but not the individual flat doors. When we tried their lockbox, it had the same keycode as ours! Keys swapped and all good.

When I looked through previous visit e-mails for keycodes, for three years we'd had the same code! I did tell the owner this and they said they code was set by the building management - when I tested all the lockboxes there were five flats all with the same keycode!

When we stayed in 2022, we got the keys to our flat and kept them on our person all week, deadbolting the front door access via the vestibule and using the steps out the rear of the flat for access / egress........though I do wonder how easy a free holiday in low season for a couple of nights would be, especially if you go on Trip Advisor and see if there are any bookings or not!

[keith333]

skwdenyer said:

22s said:

I appointed a firm on Thursday to do this for a flat in London so been looking into it in a lot of detail.

I have a very busy day job so was completely unfeasible for me to manage the flat myself. I had actually appointed someone else earlier in the week, but ended up firing them before they even started.

I am paying 14% of net revenue.

This includes:

- Lockbox installation
- Booking management
- 24/7 emergency line
- Professional photos
- Listing / pricing management on Airbnb and Booking.com
- New toiletries and linen every changeover
- Online dashboard to check listings etc


They seem good so far... Listing next week so time will tell...

A question for the AirBnB operators - how do you get on with lockboxes and insurance? My limited experience so far is that the codes don't get changed between bookings, so anyone with the code (or frankly anyone who had the key to copy) can just come in any time they like.

I'm really surprised there aren't more problems (although I've heard plenty of horror stories). I'd have assumed that - at a minimum - one should have (a) keys that can't be copied without authorisation, and (b) whoever does the changeovers changing the lockbox code each time. But it seem this just isn't done.

We change our key safe to the current guest's last four digits of their mobile phone. I would like to think that many AirBnB hosts do the same.