Liddell - How to get rich using airbnb

Smashwords Edition

The moral rights of the author have beenasserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise without thewritten permission of the Publisher.

This book is dedicated to the wonderful group ofpeople who founded Airbnb, one of the best uses of the Internet andthat truly lives up to the wishes of the Internet inventor Sir TimBernard Lee who wanted to empower normal people.

This book is alsodedicated to the hundreds of our guests who have ever stayed withus now and in the future. We ve been blessed bymeeting some lovely people from many different backgrounds. Youmake every day of our lives like a little holiday without usleaving home.

If you're reading this you probably already have avague idea of what Airbnb is. Airbnb and other similar room-rentalschemes such as Wimdu and Roomorama are some of the best and mostinnovative uses of the Internet and help you make money from yourbiggest asset, your home.

Born out of oldersites such as couch-surfer and the old student and hippy traditionof crashing on the sofa wherever you can find one; Airbnb takes itto another level. It allows youto rent out your spare rooms or indeed properties to travellersallowing them to stay somewhere friendly, homely and usuallycheaper than if they were to stay in a hotel.

Whilst it started off as a way for friends to findsomewhere to stay in San Francisco, it has now spread around theworld with millions of people opening their homes to strangers,making new friends and making a bit of extra money as a bonus.

The author and his wife have made over tens ofthousands in the last two years with over seventy 5-star ratedreviews on our average suburban home and I want to give you thebest chance to do the same.

This e-book will show you how to maximise yourearnings from Airbnb but the ideas behind it can be used for themany other similar websites.

The biggest decisionyou have to make f irst of allyou is whether Airbnb is for you. Essentially youare opening your home to strangers and this isn't foreveryone. There aresafety issues that people have to overcome and simple privacy andpersonal space issues as well. Airbnb goes along way to make the whole experience as safe as possible. In our experience we have had over 100 people stay with usin the last year and we haven't had a single problem. Yes on the first night we hardly slept as we knew that withour luck we had just let an axe murderer into our home but as ithappened we had nothing to worry about and neither did our equallynervous guest. We very quickly became used to sharing our home withstrangers but not every does.

E veryone who uses Airbnb is vetted before theycan open their homes to any guests. There aredifferent levels of vetting that one can go through but the minimallevel ensures that both guest and host have their ID, address andcontact details verified. Additionally,Airbnb offer a comprehensive insurance policy to cover againstdamages and losses by your guest. In allthe time that Airbnb has been running only one, admittedlyhigh-profile claim, has come to light of a guy in the USA who cameback to his apartment to find it totally trashed. That's one personout of millions.

Decide on yourcheck-in and check-out times. Some people may decide to haggle overthe times and the price, it s up to you if youwant to agree to your requests depending on your circumstances.Originally my listings had a check-in time of 5pm or later to allowtime to get back from work. These days I largely work from home sothey can arrive early if they really want to but Iwon t have anyone arriving after 9pm. Once you have beenup until 11pm or midnight a few times just for guests to arrivefrom the airport, it quickly loses its charm and late arriversoften underestimate the travel time or possible delays.

An important new feature on Airbnb is that of InstantBooking. This feature allows guests to book your listing withoutyou having to respond to emails. However it also takes away much ofthe control you have over who stays with you and when. If your roomor property is listed on more than one site then it makes usingInstant Booking impractical. Most Airbnb hosts seem to have decidednot to use Instant Booking due to the lack of control it offers butof course it might be just the thing for you particularly if yourlisting is not at your home.

The other issue abouthaving someone stay with you is not one of personal safety butrather one of personal freedom. Letting guestsstay at your home means that guess what, you will have completestrangers in your home. This means thatwhen you come home tired from work and just want to watch TV inpeace, you might have to talk to someone. If youlike to potter round the kitchen at 8am on a Sunday morning with noclothes on well you might want to put a dressing gown on unless youwant to scare your guests and ruin your online reputation! There will be times when you want to go out and youcan t because guests are due to arrive and there will benights with interrupted sleep as guests from different time-zonesare up half the night chatting on Skype to their family. In my experience though and I'm writing as someone who ismore than happy on my own for days on end and who likes my ownspace, you quickly get used to it. You meet nicenew people, many of whom come back to you and then there is thebonus, you make money.

Before you getproperly started, you may have to check out before you go live onAirbnb is that you are actually not breaking any bylaws by rentingout your spare room or property. There have been a number ofhigh-profile cases in New York where tenants have had theirlistings shut down and worse as doing so violates local laws ortenancy agreements. If in doubt check first before you open up yourhome to guests. On a related matter you may want to check with yourmortgage and or home-insurance provider as having strangers stay inyour home may technically breach certain policies. Ifyou re worried a guest might fall down your stairs or slipin the bath, do make sure you recovered.