I want to share my experience from the first 30 days of hosting through Airbnb and Furnished Finder. Feel free to jump down to a different section:
- What Type Of House I Am Renting On Airbnb
- My Target Market Of Guests On Airbnb
- How I Priced My Rental On Airbnb
- How I Adjusted My Price On Airbnb During My First Month
- Cleaning Fees And Rental Cleaners
- What I Have Learned My First Month Hosting On Airbnb
- Guests May Leave Items Behind At An Airbnb
- The Financial Breakdown Of First Month On Airbnb
Last fall, I moved in with my fiancé and together we spent way too much time renovating my old house to get it up and running as a mid-term/short-term rental. In December 2024 my rental house was finally ready for guests and I listed the house up on Furnished Finder. I waited about two weeks and then I listed my house on Airbnb as well.
Since my goal is to focus on Furnished Finder more than Airbnb I was hoping to book through Furnished Finder first. But, it took longer than anticipated so I added Airbnb as well. As soon as it was as soon as it was up and running on Airbnb, I was receiving guest requests and I soon booked my first guest for December 30th!
Quickly after that booking confirmation, I had a potential guest request that I hold the property for them. They had just moved to Boise and were trying to get settled. They were essentially jumping from one Airbnb to another Airbnb. They wanted to book for two weeks and they could pay up front but they had to wait until payday, which was Friday, the same day they would be moving in. I trusted my gut and agreed to hold those dates for them until they got paid. They became the first official guests to stay at the new rental house and they stayed for two full weeks! During their two week stay, I was able to fully book up the rental house for the rest of December and into the first weekend of January. (Minus one night were I couldn’t fit a clean and refit of the rental into my schedule.)
On December 31st, I had my first tenant from Furnished Finder reach out to me. I had been reaching out to different open requests from people and had not gotten a single reply for almost the entire month. So when the tenant reached out to me directly and said they were looking for a rental house for two to three months, I was beyond excited! Within a few hours they had passed a background check and signed a contract for them to move in on the 4th of January, 2025.
The tenant paid the security deposits and first months rent and I expected them to move in on the afternoon of the 4th. However on the 8th of January they sent me a message saying their situation had changed, they had not moved in, and they no longer needed the rental house. Because we had a signed legally binding lease agreement we came to an arrangement that if I could rent out the house for the duration of what would have been their one month’s initial stay, I would refund them back their money. However if I was not able to rent out the house they would not be refunded for those days.
So then I relisted the rental house saying it was available the next day starting on the 9th of January. Almost immediately I had a group reach out wanting to stay that same night in the rental through Airbnb. Things got a little complicated though… When the guests through Airbnb were staying at my house the original tenant from Furnished Finder reached out to me. They said they actually were going to be staying at the house and asked when they could go ahead and move in.
As soon as the guests from Airbnb left the next morning, I went and cleaned the rental and made sure that it was ready to go. I informed the tenant from furnished Finder they could move in and they moved in that afternoon. They have been living there since and now it is the end of January. So for the first month, minus the initial 12 days of waiting on furnished Finder, my rental house was completely booked up. (minus that one night in December where I could not do the turn around for a single night stay.)
All in all for December I was booked on Airbnb for 18 nights. The first booking started on the 13th of December, and they stayed for two weeks. Other than that long stay, primarily every single booking has been for one night except one group that stayed for two nights. In January, I had 4 nights booked and they were all single night stays with the exception of the two night stay carried over from December.
That means I had 22 nights booked in my first 30 days on Airbnb. And a booking for 30 plus days through Furnished Finder within the first month of being on that platform. With the bonus of that tenant staying through February and potentially through March as well!
What Type Of House I Am Renting On Airbnb
For those of you that are wondering what kind of house I am renting through Airbnb, it is a two-bedroom 1 bath house in Boise ID. I also have a queen sized pullout couch which has a nice bed so I can sleep 6 people in my rental house. The house itself is relatively small, coming in at just over 1000 square feet but the backyard is huge! The entire lot is 1/4 of an acre which is huge for the Boise area!
My Target Market Of Guests On Airbnb
My primary focus on Airbnb is families and people with pets! While there are a lot of rental houses in Boise, not all of them cater to pets, have a built in doggy door, and a large fully fenced back yard. So that is my target market, and my house is set up just for that!
How I Priced My Rental On Airbnb
I wanna talk about pricing because that is a large aspect when it comes to operating a short-term rental. There are different services out there that you can pay for to essentially consolidate data and give you an idea of what prices are in the area for different rentals and what a potential price would work for you. I did not use those because I was trying to save as much money as possible.
What I did instead was this – I pulled up Airbnb in guest mode as if I was looking in my same area to book a house that fit the similar description of mine. A two-bedroom, 1 bath, pet friendly house. I looked at various weekends throughout the year and compared their prices based off the size and the condition of the house. I manually inputted that information on a spreadsheet in excel and then evaluated where my rental sat in comparison.
I initially set up the rental house for $91.00 a night. But Airbnb encourages you to offer 20% off the booking price for your first 3 guests. The idea is to get guests in the door and hopefully receive three outstanding 5-star reviews so you can book more guests in the future. I decided that was a great idea and quickly booked those first 3 stays.
How I Adjusted My Price On Airbnb During My First Month
My first booking was set for the end of the month, one night for $91 with 20% off making it $72.80 for the one night.
My 2nd booking was for the 13th of December, for two whole weeks. That makes 14 nights at $91 each would have been $1,274 but with 20% off that came to $1,019.20 for a 2 week stay.
For my 3rd booking, I added in the option for guests to make a completely non-refundable booking for 10% off. That 10% and the original 20% off for a new listing meant I dropped the nightly price from $91 to $65.52.
After I finalized the first three bookings the price went back up to $91 a night, which was a little high for me so I adjusted it down to $81 a night. I booked one more guest and then decided I needed a little higher take home pay. So, I added in a cleaning fee of $25. Which is about you know $5 or $6 more than what it costs in gas money for me to travel out to the rental to clean it myself.
Cleaning Fees And Rental Cleaners
As far as cleaning instructions for guests goes, there are none. I ask them to turn off all the lights, lock all the doors, and to have a good time. So, I handle all the cleaning. Because there were so many one night stays and I have to drive 45 miles one way to flip and clean the house each time, I reached out to my sister-in-law, to see if she wanted to help out. She put me in touch with a friend who was looking for just this type of opportunity and we connected. Together we negotiated a cleaning price of $55 for a standard cleaning.
What I Have Learned My First Month Hosting On Airbnb
Take the time to manually review each guest that wants to book with you. If they have poor reviews from previous hosts, do not book them. A small amount of time spent at the beginning can save you a lot of headaches and time in the future. If a guest does damage or smokes in your house, document it and report to Airbnb. You can have additional cleaning and items that need to be replaced covered by Airbnb.
Make your Airbnb listing match what your house is really like. Take really good photos or hire a professional photographer. Those photos are really going to lead the charge with potential guests. Create a welcome binder with basic instructions on how to operate all the different appliances offered. Explain processes in detail so guests know what to do and where things are located. Laundry is the longest task with cleaning the Airbnb, usually. Start washing the bedding as soon as you get to the rental. Also, purchase a few nice black wash cloths for guests to use when removing makeup! If they use white wash cloths, they will be stained forever!
One of the biggest things is to check on all of the little things in the rental house. My first clean after we had the guest stay for two weeks, I did it by myself. It took me a long time more than 4 hours to get it ready for the next guests. I rushed at the end and forgot to dump out the coffee grounds in the coffee machine. I realized I’d missed it when I got back home and I hoped it would be fine. The next guest reached out to me saying they went to make coffee and there were old, moldy coffee grounds. I apologized and ended up sending them $20.00 in an adjustment so they could go out and get coffee. The good news is they still left me a five star review and give me some positive and important feedback on the house.
Guests May Leave Items Behind At An Airbnb
I underestimated how many things people might leave behind. The first group that stayed for two weeks left a ridiculous amount of food in the fridge and the freezer. They also left a cooler, multiple bags of trash inside the house and outside, and they left a full load of clothes in the dryer. I reached out to them to see if they wanted to keep anything they forgot, which they did. Since they were staying local they came back over. I prepped the cooler, bagged up their clothes and took it out to them. I was lucky that I had my pickup truck because I put multiple bags of garbage in the back of my truck to take to my personal house to throw away because there was so much garbage from this group.
So always check the coffee pot, the fridge, the freezer, the washer and dryer, and all of the drawers just in case people left items behind. In the first month, I’ve had three different guests leave personal items and only two guests leave food behind.
The Financial Breakdown Of First Month On Airbnb
Finally, lets look at the financial breakdown of my first 30 days hosting on Airbnb and Furnished Finder.
| Expenses | Cost |
|---|---|
| Mortgage Principal*** | -$441.92 |
| Mortgage Interest | -$536.34 |
| Insurance | -$220.74 |
| Utilities (it was a lower month) | -$259.84 |
| Rental Cleaner (twice) | -$110.00 |
| Gas Expense For Cleanings Done Myself | -$170.95 |
| Cleaning and Basic Supplies For Rental | -$241.88 |
| Earnings From Airbnb | $1,671.89 |
| Earnings From Furnished Finder | $567.74 |
| Key Check Annual Membership* | -$49.99 |
| Earnings Before Taxes | $649.89 |
The good news is most of the bookings were at 20% less than what I will be charging in the future. I won’t typically need to purchase that many supplies every month and the annual membership fees only come around once a year. Most of these expenses are able to be written off and will lower the amount of taxable income I have. One big expense that I do not get to write off is the principal payments made on the mortgage every month. Payments made towards the principal of the mortgage are considered taxable income.
Airbnb already remittees three different taxes to the IRS for me – the Idaho Sales Tax, the Idaho Travel and Convention Tax, and the Greater Boise Auditorium Distract Tax. Those taxes are specifically related to short-term rentals, meaning any stay that is less than 30 days. They do not apply to guests who stay for 30 days or more. That means I only have to worry about State, Federal, and Self-employment Taxes for Airbnb and Furnished Finder.
Taking all that into consideration, my gross pay for the first 30 days is $649.89. I’ll owe around $214.43 in taxes, give or take. Making my net pay $435.36 which will almost completely cover the principal amount on the mortgage! Which means I almost broke even my first month, even with higher expenses and annual fees!
On average I am estimating about $1,600 in expenses every month. If I earn $2,000 a month, I will take home around $850 before taxes (including the principal paid on the mortgage). That would be about $280.46 owed in taxes. So, after paying the mortgage and the taxes it would be about $120 a month in actual earnings and the equity gained from paying the mortgage. This of course does not cover every factor that comes into play, especially depreciation on the house that will lower that taxable income as well. That being said, once the mortgage is paid off that take home pay will increase a lot!
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