How to Turn Your House into an Airbnb: A Complete Guide from Vacation Rental Experts

The rise of short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb, have made it possible to convert your second home into a revenue-generating real estate investment. Vacation rentals are big business, especially if you’re in a popular tourist market, but there’s also a lot of work involved. You may be wondering how to turn your house into an Airbnb – where do you even start? As vacation rental experts, we at SkyRun are here to walk you through the process of how you can begin earning extra income from your home, and can even lend a hand in managing your property should you ever need it. Let’s dive in!

Where to Start when Listing Your Home as a Short-Term Rental

Research HOA Guidelines

Before you can become Airbnb hosts and begin the process of renting your home as a vacation rental, you must first ensure your neighborhood allows it. While most states and cities have ordinances regulating short term rentals, some homeowners associations do not allow them in any circumstance. This means checking your HOA agreement should be the first thing you do before you invest any time or money into this endeavor.

Understand Local Short-Term Rental Regulations

Next, you’ll want to research city, county, and state regulations and permitting guidelines to fully understand what is and isn’t allowed in your area. As vacation rentals have grown in popularity, many state and local governments have put more regulations in place and cracked down on compliance. Your home will need to be in full compliance of all state and local regulations and have the appropriate licenses in order to be listed for rent.

Information about local laws and regulations can usually be found on your government’s website, so we recommend you start your research there. Make notes as you go so you can start building an understanding of what you need to do to get started. If you have specific questions, you can likely call the office that handles these regulations directly. Every city and state is different, so you may have to do some digging online or call around to find the appropriate person to talk to. These beginning steps are some of the most important, as you can face fines or risk losing your license if you aren’t in compliance.

DIY vs. Professional Property Management

Once you understand all the regulations and licensing requirements, it’s time to make an important decision – do you want to manage your property on your own or hire a professional property manager? Many people assume that using a DIY approach is the way to go. After all, why would you pay someone to do something you’re capable of doing yourself? But there are both pros and cons to going it alone. You’ll want to weigh out all these factors before making your decision:

Pros of self-managing your Airbnb property:

• No management fees: When you manage your own Airbnb rental, you won’t have to pay a manager a portion of your profits or any fees they may charge you as part of their services. This could mean extra cash in your pocket.
• Full control of your property: You’ll be in full control of all aspects of your rental. When you manage your own home, you’ll have final say in where you list your property for rent, how guest experiences are managed, and how your home is cleaned and maintained between guests. 
• Set your own prices: With full control of your home, you’ll also have the power to set your own nightly rates. This means you can determine what price you need in order to reach your goals and ensure your home is always priced at that number.

Cons of self-managing your Airbnb property:

• Requires a lot of time: Managing a short term rental is not a small undertaking. You’ll have to invest a lot of time and energy into it. Expect to put in numerous hours a week and prepare to be on-call 24/7 for guests. If you don’t have the time to devote to this, a professional manager may be a better option.
• All tasks are your responsibility: As the sole person responsible for your property, you’ll be forced to wear multiple hats. You’ll be responsible for marketing and booking your property, responding to guest inquiries, cleaning between bookings, maintenance of the home, and every other task that comes up.
• Must compete with sophisticated strategies of bigger brands: Because vacation rentals have become a big business, many professionally-managed rentals are employing sophisticated pricing strategies and optimization tactics. As a one-home operation, you’ll have to figure out how to beat the competition to get your property among the top of results and price it effectively to convert those views to bookings.

Estimating the Revenue Potential of Your Short-Term Rental

If you decide a DIY approach is the best option for you, the next step is to analyze the revenue potential of your home. There are several factors to consider here – you’ll have to think not only about the money you’ll bring in from bookings, but also all the costs of turning your home into a short-term rental and the cost of operations. To get started, these are just a few of the expenses you’ll need to account for when determining your revenue potential:

• Licensing fees
• Mortgage payment
• Utilities
• Insurance premiums
• Housekeeping between guests
• Materials costs (linens, toiletries, paper goods, etc.)
• Maintenance of your home
• Applicable taxes and fees
• Commission charges from online booking channels

If this all seems a little overwhelming, a professional management team like SkyRun can lend a hand. SkyRun’s vacation rental experts in your region can provide a detailed rental revenue projection that can give you a clear picture of what your home could be earning and what costs you’ll be facing if you work with us. This is a no-obligation courtesy that we provide to homeowners who are looking to make money in the vacation rental space. This projection gives new hosts a good starting point when thinking about the financial side of converting your home into a vacation rental.

Preparing Your Property to Rent

Now it’s time to turn your focus to the property itself. You’ll have to do some preparations before you can welcome guests, as renters expect to have a clean, inviting environment and the basic necessities of home. Here’s the main things you’ll need to consider:

• Security: How will you secure the property and grant guests access? Many homes use keypad locks, so guests only need a code to get into the home. This prevents the need for in-person check-ins and check-outs, which saves time.
• Weather Protocols: Do you live in an area with regular snowfall, tropical storm cycles, or other common weather events? If so, you’ll need to think about how you’ll handle that when it occurs. If you’re managing the home yourself, you may be out shoveling snow or cleaning up storm debris before guests arrive.
• Cleaning and Inspections: Are you planning to clean the home yourself or hire a housekeeping service? You’ll need to figure out how to schedule these and inspect the home before the next guest arrives.
• Linens: How do you plan to handle the cleaning and restocking of bedding, towels, and other linens? Some housekeeping services may have an option to tack this onto cleaning. If you’re planning to DIY everything, you’ll have to coordinate all of this between guests.
• Consumable Amenities: Where do you plan on purchasing the consumable amenities you’ll put in the house (i.e. shampoos, soaps, toilet paper, etc)? You’ll want to think ahead and ensure you always have these at the ready – you don’t want your guests to be without these necessities at any point.
• Cancellation Policies: What will you do if a guest wants to cancel their reservation? Before you begin taking bookings, you need to write a thorough cancellation policy and ensure guests are aware of it. 
• Insurance Coverage: You’ll need special short term rental insurance coverage for your property before you welcome guests. We suggest you speak to your current insurance policy provider to see if they have coverage you can add to your plan. If not, start shopping around and comparing what other companies are offering.
• House Rules: Are there certain rules you want your guests to follow? If so, you’ll want to spend time writing a document outlining these rules and place it in your home before guests arrive. Many properties have rules about quiet hours, trash disposal, parking etc. Communicating these rules to guests is the best way to ensure they don’t disturb neighbors or leave the house in bad condition.

Creating Your Airbnb Listing

With your home ready for guests, it’s time to move on to the next step – building your Airbnb listing. This is where you’ll get to show potential guests all the best features of your home and highlight how it can provide a unique and memorable experience for their vacation. You’ll want to include a complete list of all amenities and may want to consider hiring a professional photographer to take property photos — these small details will help your listing stand out among the crowd of others. As you gather all the information to build your listing, you’ll also want to think about how guests will book your property:

• Online Travel Agents (OTAs) : Are you planning to only list your home on Airbnb or multiple OTAs, like VRBO and Homes & Villas by Marriott? More exposure is better for your property, but if you want to post on multiple OTAs, you’ll need to figure out how you’ll sync calendars between the platforms in order to ensure that the property is never double booked. 
• Direct Booking Engine: You may also want to develop your own direct booking engine, where guests can book with you directly. This not only helps you earn more on your rental by avoiding fees from OTAs, but it also allows you the freedom to handle stays however you see fit without having the OTA as a middle man in the transaction. It is worth noting that most professional property management companies will have a direct booking channel and a list of guests that they can market your listing to.

With SkyRun, you can get the best of both of these options. We help you list and optimize your home on all of the leading OTAs to get your property noticed. But we also have our own direct booking engine powered by a unique tech stack, and a list of over 100k past SkyRun guests that we can promote your property to. Our integrations allow all of the calendars to be synced between platforms, allowing for seamless operation and booking for guests.

Pricing Your Home Competitively

Now we move onto another crucial part in the vacation rental industry – pricing your home. One common mistake beginners make is taking a ‘set it and forget it’ approach. They set the price of their rental property and leave it, never taking into account current factors in the market like demand. While you may still get bookings with this method, you may be leaving money on the table and you may find that your occupancy rate isn’t where you’d like it to be.

A dynamic pricing tool can help you avoid this mistake and earn extra money. All SkyRun locations utilize a dynamic pricing tool in the management of their properties. Our dynamic pricing strategy takes into account all the things currently happening in your local rental market, like daily demand, tourist trends, occupancy, and competitor rates. Based on these factors, your rate is adjusted nightly, helping to maximize both the number of nights booked and the rental revenue, no matter the time of year. This tactic helps to ensure you’re earning every penny you should without pricing yourself out of the market.

Managing Guest Experiences

Once your home is ready for guests to arrive and you’ve built a plan for listing your property, it’s time to make a plan for how you’ll manage guests when they start arriving. Providing top-notch experiences for guests is one of the best ways to build positive online reviews, which is crucial for securing more bookings. Here’s what you should think about before you begin to welcome Airbnb guests:

• Check-in / Check-out: You’ll want to create a seamless check-in and check-out process for guests. Usually this means creating a thorough email about how guests can access the property and what they should do before they leave. Guests are on vacation and don’t want to waste a lot of time on these processes, so the more streamlined you can make it, the better.
• Guest Communications: Guests may need to contact you with questions during their stay. You’ll need to provide a contact number for them and be ready to help them if they have issues accessing the property or using any of the amenities inside. 
• Emergencies: Urgent situations with the property may arise during a guest’s stay. In these instances, you’ll want to clearly communicate what number to call in emergencies, and you’ll need to be ready to answer these calls. Managing a vacation property means being on call 24/7.
• Maintenance: With so many guests coming and going, your property will incur some wear and tear over time. You’ll need to have a plan in place for maintaining a comfortable and inviting property. Guests don’t want to stay in a home that feels overused, so it’s up to you to make sure the property is well maintained.

Once you create a thorough plan of how you’ll fulfill all these tasks, you’re ready to go live on booking sites and start taking reservations. Keep in mind that you may run into some hiccups along the way, but it’s all part of the learning process. Converting your property into a short-term rental has the potential to be a lucrative investment, but it won’t come without work. You’ll have a lot of planning to do as you work your way through this guide, but at the end, you’ll have the chance to create a successful stream of income.

Why Go It Alone When You Could Partner with Us?

It’s clear from this guide that turning your home into an Airbnb or vacation rental is no easy task. While it is possible to do everything yourself, it can quickly become a full-time job and it can be challenging in today’s competitive environment to ensure that your rental is truly making all the revenue that it can. If you don’t have the time to commit to this venture, but still want to get in on the short-term rental market and generate passive income, the SkyRun Vacation Rentals team is here for you.

SkyRun is an experienced property management company in the short-term rental space with locations across the country. Our expertise means you don’t have to worry about the details because we’ll take the lead. Doesn’t that sound a lot easier than trying to do everything yourself? Trust us, it is. We’ve helped numerous homeowners find success with their short term rentals, and we’re ready to do the same for you.