How long does it take to setup an Airbnb ⏱🛏 🏡 ?
Getting your home guest-ready should no longer hold you back from earning extra income from the extra space in your home. 💰🛏😎
I walk you through exactly what's involved in getting your home guest-ready and creating your listing on Airbnb. ✅It may not take you as long as you think to turn the extra or unused space in your home into extra income 💵
I'll uncover some common mistakes new hosts make when setting their Airbnb and show you how to avoid them 🤓
On this week's episode, I'll run through:
👉Preparing and cleaning your home
👉Creating some space for guests' belongings
👉Creating your listing on Airbnb
👉Planning your check in and check out process
Don't leave on another vacation without hosting guests in your home or let your extra bedroom sit empty for any longer! Join the millions of hosts 🌎on Airbnb earning extra income 💰 from their homes 🏡 .
👉👉Every week I post a few quick tips on my Instagram account! 📸📸 Follow me: @airbnbuncovered
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TRANSCRIPT
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Hi!! And welcome back to my channel! I’m Matt the creator of Airbnbuncovered.com and Airbnb super host. On this channel I UNCOVER some of the best kept hosting secrets as well as share with you everything that I’ve ever learned after hosting over 3000 guests. If you’re thinking about becoming an airbnb host, then this video is for you! Today I’m going to go over what’s involved in setting up your Airbnb and how long you can expect it to take.
There are 2 main components to getting your house ready to welcome your first guests and we’re gonna cover each of them in today’s video. We’ll talk about setting up your home and creating your listing on Airbnb – including designing your check in and check out processes.
I hope that you’re enjoying the content on my channel so far. And If you are, I hope you’ll subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any of my upcoming videos. And if you’re already subscribed, thank you! Please don’t forget to give me a thumbs up, if you like this video – it’s a huge help with the youtube algorithm.
So let me dive into the first area, which is setting your home up for Airbnb. The way I see it there are two big chunks to this part: the cleaning and the maintenance part.
In last week’s video I talked all about decluttering, removing personal items and giving your home a deep clean. This is a great place to start, but let’s go a little bit deeper in this week’s video. You’ve to pay particular attention to how clean your kitchen and bathrooms are because these are of prime importance to guests. Make sure there is no visible mold or mildew in either of these rooms. Toss any dead or near dead house plants, same goes for food in your fridge that is nearing expiration. I just want to point out that this process is the same if you’re planning to list your entire home or you’re sharing just a part of it, like a spare bedroom. Every area that a guest has access too has to be clean! When you’re decluttering try to create space for your guests’ belongings. A couple drawers in a dresser and some hangers and space in the closet should suffice. If you can only afford space in one or the other, then clear space in your closet. Sometimes guests travel with items that they don’t want to wrinkle. So that’s the clean part. What about the maintenance part?
As for maintenance, make sure you don’t have any burnt out lights. Check for any loose or malfunctioning doorknobs or windows. Double check that the wires for your electrical appliances are in good shape and not frayed or worn. Replace that loose deck board and make sure that your door locks are in good working order. I just read an article earlier today about a guest complaining that the front door didn’t lock. This is a huge no, no. A review that mentions the front door won’t lock could all but kill your listing. Also, Double check that the batteries in your smoke detector and carbon monoxide monitor are good and that both are functioning. (Airbnb encourages every home to have a carbon monoxide monitor and smoke detector. And I think these are must haves. Sometimes Airbnb will give away free carbon monoxide detectors, so keep an eye on their site for an announcement). While you might okay with a toaster that needs a little jiggle to get the toast out or a lock that you need to fiddle with to open, your guests probably won’t be. So bring your home up to tip top shape.
So how much time should all this take? Well that depends on the size of your home and its current state. Do you have a lot of clutter and personal items in your home? Then set aside a couple days to sort through your stuff and either store it (if its valuable or of high sentimental significance) or toss it or donate it. Remember the age old secret of design: less is more. Maybe you don’t have a lot of clutter, but your home needs some maintenance, set aside the same amount of time, a few days, to get all that done. If you’ve a smaller home with relatively little clutter than you’re probably fine with half a day or even a few hours if you’re a real neat-freak. Look at readying your home for your first guests, as motivation to get all your home-to-do items off your list.
The next one-time, setup activity that you need to do is to setup your listing on Airbnb. This usually takes between 2-4 hours and I’m including the time it takes to take pictures of your space in this estimate. Airbnb now provides a step-by-step guide to create your listing. Fill in all the fields in this process – even the optional ones. Having a complete listing helps boost your search ranking. If you’re stuck on what to write, then check out a couple listings in your area for inspiration. Once your listing is live, you want to go back to the “edit listing” screens and adjust the settings that were not available in the step-by-step process. I’ll explore these options in future videos.
One often overlooked part of setting up your Airbnb is designing your check in process. Many newbie hosts often overlook this part and then they are scrambling right before their first guest arrives. Think about: how you are going to facilitate key exchange? Does your address appear exactly on google maps? Will you meet your guests in person? If so, where? Thinking about your check in is much easier if you’re airbnb’ing a standalone house, but in a condo or apartment things get more complicated. If you’re not planning an in person check in, then where will you leave your keys? Lockboxes are the de facto. But they can freeze or be removed. Once your guest have the keys, exactly what do they do after that? If your lockbox is hanging from your door knob, then its easy. But if it’s in a different location, then you need step by step instructions. Or maybe you use a smart lock on your door and in that case you need step by step instructions on how to download the app and then step-by-step instructions on how to use the app. Seldom are these steps provided by the smart lock manufacturer.
Similarly, if you need check in instructions then you probably also need check out instructions. Again, this part is often overlooked. What do guests do with the keys when they’re leaving? Will you meet them in person to grab them? Do you want your guests to do anything before they leave? Take out the trash? Start the laundry or dishwasher? Turn down the heat or AC? Map out both your check in and check out processes before you host your first guest arrive… otherwise you’ll be scrambling and appear disorganized to your guests.
To answer the question of how long, in total, it will take you to prep your home and set up your Airbnb listing is I’d say between a few days and 3-6 hours depending on the condition of your home. You might be wondering what would happen if you don’t bother doing all of this… well the short answer is your Airbnb probably won’t work. The way the Airbnb algorithm is setup is that it gives new hosts a natural bump in search results for the first few days after a listing goes live. These first few days are your opportunity to secure your first few bookings. Then your ratings and response times will fuel your ranking in search – ideally matching the boost you received right out of the gate. But to sustain this level of activity you need to have 5-star ratings from your first guests. Guests will not give you good ratings if your home is dirty, cluttered or in need of maintenance and thus your ranking in search will drop way down and guests won’t even see your listing, let alone book it. So, I strongly encourage you to do all the upfront prep work as best as you can.
Are you currently setting up your home for your first guests? I’d love to hear about your progress! Please tell me in the comments down below.
Now let’s bring it all home. In this week’s episode we went over what’s involved with getting your home guest-ready and how much time you can expect to spend doing that. I went over both of the major 1-time setup activities and those were, physically setting up your space – so that was decluttering, cleaning and maintaining. Then we talked about the virtual stuff – which was your Airbnb listing and your check in and check out procedure. I hope you’ll find this video helpful. If you did, please give it a thumbs up! And if you’re not already subscribed, please do so and click on the notification bell, so you’ll receive a notice when I post a new video. Until next week, thanks again for watching and bye for now.
