10 Tips for Airbnb Hosts: Renting Out Your Home

Hosting on Airbnb can feel a bit daunting – at least, it did for us before we started doing it nearly 10 years ago. We had so many questions – how do we start? Is it safe? What are the requirements? Are there any safeguards and protections? I wish I’d had these tips for Airbnb hosts to help us feel more comfortable hosting on Airbnb.

I wrote a whole post on our routine to get ready for a guest, but I also wanted to share a set of Airbnb host tips, especially if you’re new to hosting. These are things that are helpful to us to keep things streamlined and smooth, so it’s not more headache than it’s worth. (And if you haven’t used Airbnb before, you can use this link to get $40 off your first stay!)

I always get so many questions about hosting, especially with kids – do we put away our stuff? Have a locked closet? Have different sheets? What are our Airbnb house rules? Hopefully these tips for Airbnb hosts will help minimize anxiety about having others in your home, and let you focus on the income that supports your own travels.

The only times we’ve ever had (minor) issues with guests are the very few times we’ve accepted guests who didn’t perfectly align with our predetermined criteria. For us personally, that means we typically only accept families, or the occasional business travelers. We’ve had good experiences with providing lodging for extended family groups.

We are NOT, however, interested in providing general large group accommodations, such as for a big friend group. I’m sure there are some friend groups that are respectful and cautious. However, we’ve found that more often, there’s too much diffusion of responsibility and lack of rule-following.

There have been one or two times when we’ve accepted them because it was for a longer stay and we were worried we wouldn’t have other guests. We should’ve stuck to our guns.

Does that mean YOU shouldn’t accept friend groups? Of course not. Just figure out where your comfort zone lies and stick to it.

TIPS FOR AIRBNB HOSTS #2: HAVE A LOCKED SPACE, and PHOTOGRAPH BELONGINGS

Set aside a locked space

People are most often worried about security when they consider becoming an Airbnb host. Hosting on Airbnb can definitely feel scary when you’ve never had a stranger stay in your home before! Having some sort of locked space is great for keeping private things private.

The space size depends on what you need to store. We don’t have many valuables so we have a very small locked area for paperwork (tax docs, etc.). We also take my violin over to a trusted neighbor’s house. Other than that, we’re not so worried about someone running off with our $300 Amazon couch.

If you have more valuables, you may want to consider locking a closet or perhaps even a whole room. Having that separate space, no matter how small, will give you peace of mind.

Making a claim with Airbnb

Also, Airbnb has a $1 million host guarantee. We’ve found for the slight issues we’ve had that didn’t involve physical damage (e.g., someone left a pack of cigarettes and smoked outside our house, despite our very clear no-smoking rules – details below), Airbnb was pretty much useless. However, another time when a minor cord was damaged, we had no issues submitting a claim and they took care of everything very promptly.

Because of this, we feel comfortable leaving out electronics like our TV/DVD player. We don’t have anything fancy or brand new when it comes to those items, so we wouldn’t be heartbroken if they had to be replaced, and we trust Airbnb to take care of it.

We do take pictures of our home before leaving, so it’s clear what belongings were there and what condition they were in. Unlike some other Airbnb host tips, this one takes minimal effort and is great security. If we ever need to submit a claim, these photos will be helpful. We’ve never needed to use those, but it’s nice for peace of mind should anything ever come up.

TIPS FOR AIRBNB HOSTS #3: PACK UP SPECIAL ITEMS, BUT NOT YOUR WHOLE HOUSE

Items don’t have to be expensive to be special. So another of our tips for Airbnb hosts is to just put aside those special items.

We have a couple of plastic bins in which our kids can put any special stuffed animals, LEGO creations, or play jewelry. It helps them feel better knowing another kid won’t accidentally break something that’s important to them.

That said, Airbnb hosts do NOT have to pack away the entire house. For the most part, we leave our clothes in closets and drawers. We clear out some space for guests, but certainly not the entire closet. There’s also a shelf in our bathroom cabinet that we leave clear. We make it clear in our listing that it is a family home and that personal items will still be around.

Also, figure out as Airbnb hosts what is actually special or valuable to you – will you be devastated if an heirloom sofa gets a stain on it? We figure, people aren’t going to care one whit about my $10 Target t-shirt or basic sewing machine. We leave the kids’ craft supplies in that area of the playroom, and just ask guests to replenish anything they’ve used heavily.

 

It will make your life infinitely easier as Airbnb hosts if you have guest sheets separate from your own. We set our personal ones aside in a bin under the bed and leave a note for the cleaners to put those on before we return. Then they’re for sure clean and ready to go, and stay nice and fresh.

We also recently purchased a second set of inexpensive nonstick cookware. We’re vegetarian and don’t like guests to cook meat on our pots and pans. We also don’t want to risk guests scratching them if used improperly. So instead of being anal about telling guests what to use and how they can use it, we spent $50 and got a whole set of nonstick cookware just for guests. It’s perfectly functional and works very well, but it’s not our beloved set.

Same with knives – we actually had 2 of my favorite chef’s knife and left one out for guests. Unfortunately, one guests chipped the blade. We didn’t realize until a while later so didn’t contact Airbnb about it. It’s still perfectly functional, but not quite as nice. Sometimes when hosting on Airbnb, little things like that happen. I’m just glad we didn’t leave out our whole set of favorite knives.

I know some Airbnb hosts clean their own places – we were those people for a few years. But I am someone who really appreciates a SPOTLESS Airbnb rental, and like to leave my home the same way. It caused so much stress to scrub everything super thoroughly while also preparing to leave on a trip. Then when we returned, we’d again have to thoroughly scrub and sanitize before we felt comfortable settling into our home, even if we were exhausted from traveling. It was just too much.