Sometimes in life you need to recognize when to pivot. Our second vacation rental was open for a little over a year; this is the story of why we closed our Airbnb.
When we purchased our second multi-family in Delridge, our Central District Airbnb had been up and running for about a year. Our experience was great – we were making more money, and we had the flexibility to host family and friends whenever we wanted. So when we saw the mid-century ranch tucked up into the trees, we decided to rent one apartment full-time, then rent the other one on Airbnb.
We leaned into the style of the house and went mid-century-to-the-max. We had a blast decorating it – we scoured thrift stores and Craigslist for several months finding the perfect furniture at a reasonable price. In all it took us about two months to prep and decorate before opening to guests in February 2016.
Delridge isn’t an obvious location for an Airbnb. It’s in West Seattle, but away from popular retail/restaurant areas like Alki, Fauntleroy and the Junction. But slowly we started booking guests. Our guests were mostly families visiting others in the area, or fans of the decor. Guests gave our listing rave reviews, and it became more popular.
There were more challenges, though. Delridge is about thirty minutes away from our home in the Central District, and that distance made it difficult to visit and check on the property. Although we had help cleaning, you do need to maintain high cleanliness standards. That requires frequent quality control checks. We could not do this as much, and guests began to notice.
Finally, one guest broke a few cabinet doors, and that was the end for me. We took the listing off the market and quickly converted it to a full-time rental. Luckily we had wonderful staged photos from the Airbnb, so it rented quickly.
Between December 2016 and June 2017, we made $12,320… roughly $1760 per month. We rented the apartment for $1900 in July 2017, so we lost money every month when it was an Airbnb. There was also the added expense and stress of being in the hospitality business – all the communication with guests, managing cleaning schedules, managing inventory, etc. We were able to reuse all the furniture in other places, and we even sold a few of the pieces for a profit.
Converting it back to a full-time rental was such a relief – the stress of managing a vacation rental we couldn’t easily visit was just too much. We learned we only have so much time to dedicate to this with our full-time jobs. And we also learned a lot about analyzing the best use of a property. Sometimes Airbnbs are not more profitable than full-time tenants. Does this mean I would never consider another vacation rental? No, but I would have someone else manage it.
