Beginner Question: What Does a Strong Airbnb Co-Host Actually Do Day-to-Day?

Question

’m new to STRs and co-hosting and trying to understand the real day-to-day operations before I try to offer help or get involved.

From what I’ve researched so far, it seems like a co-host may handle guest messaging, check-in/check-out instructions, cleaner coordination, maintenance issues, pricing, listing optimization, review requests, owner reporting, and sometimes vendor management.

For experienced hosts or co-hosts:

• - What tasks take the most time every week?
• - What problems come up the most often?
• - What do owners care about most when hiring a co-host?
• - What makes a co-host actually valuable versus just another person answering messages?
• - What tools or systems do you wish you had when you were starting?

I’m not trying to jump in too fast. I’m trying to understand the operations side and learn where a beginner could actually be useful.

Andrew Steffens · Answer

Hey Haytham

Piggybacking on what Jon said what I tend not to like about "co-hosting" is it is very vague.  There are co-hosts that do more of the one site duties like property inspections, cleaning coordination, maintenance coordination etc and some that only do the online tasks like guest messaging and pricing.  I would recommend picking a local licensed and insured property manager.

Jon Martin · Answer

Not sure if there is a true definition. From what I understand it bridges the gap between self management and full time management. Main duties would be guest messaging/inquiries, revenue and listing optimization, cleaner coordination and maybe a few other minor admin tasks.

What you described sounds more like full service management, especially once you start coordinating maintenance, repairs and vendors. Once you take that on you are essentially on call 24/7, whereas the guest messaging, revenue and cleaners can be 90-95% automated.