DO I HAVE TIME?
Ah yes...time. Our most precious resource (except maybe Bitcoin and beanie babies). Will the gravity of your duties dilate time, or will you soar through weeks or years of hosting with ease?
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Summary and Pro-tips
- I spent on average 2-3 hours a week on “hosting duties” (renting three rooms individually)
- Getting hours down to this level required A LOT of work up front
- Most time spent was in the form of 60-second interruptions
- Optimize as much as possible to minimize need for guests to interrupt your day
Once I got things “dialed in”, hosting duties took me an average of two or three hours per week. I found that constant access to my smart phone was an absolute must. In my situation, effectively hosting without the ability to quickly communicate with guests would have been impossible. So, before choosing to host, especially if you’re going to rent out more than one or two rooms, take an honest stock of if your life or work-style will allow it. In addition, hosting also made the occasional trip out of town for a friend’s wedding or other important event rather stressful. On more than one occasion I was out with friends at a location with very poor cell reception, and had to interrupt our activities to “put a fire out” back home. Though I enjoyed hosting, at times I felt chained to my smart phone. Though hosting can be lucrative, it is certainly far from “passive” income.
How I Spent My Time Hosting (per week):
Responding to inquiries from guests (1 hour):
Because I was listing three rooms individually in my home, there were more guests to “keep track of” than if I were just listing all rooms under one listing. There were typically 5 – 9 groups of people that would come through the house per week, and each guest usually required three communications via the Airbnb app (one for the initial greeting, one for check-in instructions, and one to answer other questions the guest had). Therefore, each week there were about 15 – 27 messages to send. It’s worth noting that when I first started hosting, because I hadn’t yet built a comprehensive listing, the number of communications per guest was higher. Here are some pro-tips for efficient communication.
I strove to reply to guests within about ten minutes, so this “hour” of time per week was typically broken up into a corresponding number of very brief interruptions. Because I could always respond via on my smart phone, this communication could more or less be worked into brief “breaks” throughout the day.
To gradually reduce the number of questions I received, every time I received a question that I thought a future guest may ask, I found a way to work the answer into the main listing. In addition, I kept a number of common responses stored on my phone (in ColorNote or a similar app), so I could simply copy/paste them into a response to the guest.
Building these types of efficiencies into your hosting are covered in more depth throughout this website.
Keeping the house stocked with toiletries and consumables (1.5 hours/week):
I ordered most toiletries online from Amazon or a whole-sale supplier. In the case of basics like toilet paper, paper towels, and tissues, I ordered enough to last for at least a month. The particular toiletries I provided are discussed in the section “What Toiletries and Consumables Should I Provide?”. In some cases, like for bottled water and laundry detergent, I would just purchase in bulk from my local grocery or bulk item store. Every Saturday or two I spent at least part of the afternoon re-stocking basic supplies in the house.
Pro-tips!
Be certain to click around the sections “Preparing Your Home”, “Creating an Effective Listing”, and “Host Like a BOSS” for numerous time-saving tips throughout. Here are a couple of the biggest highlights.
Get the help you need:
The first several weeks that I hosted, I tried to “do it all”, meaning I would come home at night and “turn beds” for the next night’s guests. Not only was this exhausting, it also meant that I was leaving money on the table as a result of requiring one day of buffer between guests. In my opinion, with another full time job, “doing it all” is not sustainable.
The most important decision I made early on was to take my time finding the right “house keeper”. This needed to be a person who was responsible and tech-savvy enough to plug in to the Airbnb or Vrbo calendar and stay on top of it when it came to being ready for guests. The particular characteristics I looked for, and how I went about finding this person are discussed in the section “Should I Hire a Cleaning Service?”.
Minimizing interruptions – anticipating the needs of guests:
Nothing interrupts a work-day like needing to respond to a guest “emergency” with a trip home. To avoid this, I carefully thought through the things that could require me to physically go home mid-day, and in most cases put in place solutions the guest could access. For example, I used a programmable lock on the outside door so that guests wouldn’t get locked out. For keyed bedroom locks, I had a lock-box within the house that the guest could access. Of the 300 groups of people I hosted, only two locked themselves out of their rooms, but when it happened, saving that trip home was well worth the investment in lock-boxes.
I’d recommend taking some time trying to see your home through the eyes of a weary traveler who may or may not be familiar with how things work in your country, and leave written directions to makes things crystal clear. I recently stayed at an Airbnb in Rome, and found their washing machine was unlike any I’d encountered in the US. Not wanting to damage anything, I called the host for clear instructions. It only took them five minutes to explain, but I’ll bet I wasn’t the first guest to interrupt their day with questions about how to use basic but unfamiliar appliances.