
Piper Terrett explains how she went about offering her spare space on Airbnb in order to raise a little extra cash.
It’s a Saturday night and we’re waiting nervously for our first Airbnb guest to arrive.
We decided to take the plunge a couple of weeks ago and put our spare room on the Airbnb app to see if anyone would book it.
The room is on the ground floor and has a separate entrance and bathroom opposite it. It doesn’t get used that much and we live near a tourist area, so we thought we’d give it a try.
I got the idea from a few places I’ve stayed at myself – including one in Bournemouth where part of a flat was blocked off with a shared entrance as a pleasant bohemian little place with a bed on a platform.
It struck me as a clever way to earn extra cash from our home, although it has required us to put in a little work.
Airbnb your home while on holiday
Some people put their entire homes on Airbnb when they go away on holiday. A friend’s girlfriend regularly does this with her property.
We stayed in a lovely house for a week by the seaside, where it was obvious from some of the extra items still out – such as calendars listing school activities, and things hastily hidden under the beds – that the hosts usually lived there.
I am considering doing this too, but the amount of work involved must be humongous, given how much time we spent getting just two rooms guest-ready.
How do you go about it?
Listing your room or property on Airbnb is as simple as downloading the app, opting to become a host and listing your accommodation on it with decent photos and descriptions, although this can take a few hours to get right.
The app gives you rental price suggestions and you can also look to see what other similar properties are charging in your area.
If you’ve booked through the app before, you’ll already have reviews, albeit for being a guest.
When you list your accommodation on Airbnb, you get the option to ask for advice from a superhost, which can be helpful and is also free. I was paired with a host in London, who was very supportive and answered my questions.
You can also choose whether to allow any guests on Airbnb to book for your first reservations or only experienced ones.
The idea is to try to ensure that you get good reviews for your initial bookings. I enabled this for a day or so but then found I wasn’t getting any bookings, so nervously opted for anyone and cut the quoted price by £5 a night.
I didn’t, however, enable ‘instant book’ as I wanted to be able to review the first few bookings.
We didn’t have to wait long for our first booking.
Within a day or two, we’d received two and this was before we’d even managed to put a lock on the door of the room – something that is essential, really, to attract more potential guests.
Set up costs
It may look like an easy way to earn money but it isn’t, at least when setting up.
I spent nearly £300 on items to get the room ready – a mini fridge, which then we found was noisy, iron, small kettle and toaster, fresh easy-care linen, plus a lock, then a travel cot and high chair to enable people with small children to book.
However, many of these costs can be tax-deductible.
We also spent hours cleaning the room, ironing sheets, thoroughly cleaning the bathroom, painting over dodgy paintwork in the hallway, moving furniture and clearing out books and junk from the wardrobe and pathway outside.
You don’t get paid until after the guest has checked in and then the money takes around three to five working days to go through.
As you might expect, you don’t get the full amount. Our place is listed as £76 a night but we actually get £62 as Airbnb obviously takes a fee.
So far, we’ve got bookings worth £124, so we need two more to break even.
The financial fine print
Another thing to consider if you plan to rent out a room or your entire home on Airbnb is whether your mortgage lender will allow you to.
Some lenders require homeowners to ask permission to do so, while others, such as NatWest, allow it but only for a maximum period each year, such as 90 days.
Residents in London are also only currently allowed to rent their property out for 90 days a year.
You might also find that you need additional insurance. Airbnb’s fees automatically include its Aircover insurance, which covers you for up to $3 million but not for every eventuality.
For example, damage to a neighbour's property or public land by your guest isn't covered, although damage to your home by your guest or their pet is.
Don’t forget that you will also have to pay tax on your income. However, the Government Rent-a-Room scheme does allow hosts to earn £7,500 from renting out a room in their home before paying tax on the earnings.
But, if you're claiming for the Rent-a-Room scheme, you can't also claim for expenses on your holiday let, so you may have to decide which would be more financially efficient for you.
If they're less than the £7,500 limit, it's probably better to claim for the scheme. If not, you can claim for cleaning, repairs, a portion of utility bills and even mortgage interest payments and Airbnb fees.
Welcoming our first guest
We were pleasantly surprised by our first guest. He only stayed a few hours, but he was courteous, even leaving his shoes in the hallway, quiet and left the room immaculate, checking out early.
We didn’t have our key drop box fitted yet, so we gave him the keys personally and got him to post them through the letterbox when he checked out.
The only issues were the noisy fridge, which we warned him about and he switched off, and the Wifi password turned out to be incorrect in the welcome pack we left him.
Would we get a good review?
He checked out early on the Sunday and we waited anxiously to find out if he would leave us a review. Luckily, it was a positive one and he said our place was welcoming and cosy.
We have our next guests booked in in a few weeks, so we hope they give us decent reviews too.
We’d like to get more bookings and hopefully for more than just one night, but we’ll have to see what happens.
Airbnb hosts can also make additional money by offering add-ons, such as use of a gym, spa treatments or even courses, so this is something else to consider for the future.
I think an important thing is not to be tempted to overspend on items for the Airbnb. I got so carried away, my husband had to stop me from buying a glamping kitchen/bathroom in a trailer on eBay to start a glamping business in the back garden.
I’m glad he saved me from myself or I would have bankrupted the whole venture in the first week!