Honolulu, HI · Member since 2015 · 214 posts · 49 votes
Anyone here doing Airbnb? How’s it working out?
Getting bookings? Average NOI? Pros/cons in San Jose?
I’m looking into doing this for rooms in my house or potentially the whole house
I rent a small property in the Blue Ridge mountains, works out wonderfully. If you’re going to do the rental, definitely list it on VRBO as well. Good return & benefit of personal use as well. Though, a lot more time is required to manage and coordinate as we self-manage.
Thanks people for the feedback. Yes it’s seems more costly to hire a PM for Airbnb since they’d have to come in so frequently. I’d have to be present.
Albert. Why not Airbnb to local people?
@Gary F. You'll definitely get bookings if your place shows nicely in photos, is in a decent location, and your price isn't too high, and once you've established yourself a bit, good reviews help a lot. One of my places was not renting well in June and when I lowered the price a bit, I got a bunch of bookings for July. So you may have to tinker with pricing a bit, as well as the photos and text in your listing.
Since you are thinking of just renting a room and self managing, just dive in and list it and see what happens. I'd also suggest a 1-month sub to AirDNA or similar so you can see some average numbers in terms of pricing, occupancy, etc, and see how listings in your specific area are doing.
Just something to keep in mind since I was looking into the regulations for AirBnB in San Jose (I'm not an attorney or an expert on this, though). The municipal code in San Jose requires that you live in the property for a decent portion of the year (I think it's 180 days) if you are going to rent out the whole property for short term rentals. If you are going to just rent out rooms in the property, you should be good to rent all year long.
On the other hand, from what I can tell, the regulations are looser in San Jose than other areas of Bay, so it seems like a good place to try it.
Definitely strong ROI if you get a good unit mix going. Furnished rentals work well in studios especially and can net substantially higher rent than a long term lessee (the hotel room effect).
Would target key tech areas to get all the interns and other busy spots near downtown / Santana Row.