Is earning extra money by listing your spare room on Airbnb as easy as it looks? Reporter Megan Harwood-Baynes tried it – here’s her guide.
According to Megan Harwood-Baynes, Digital Investigative Reporter @megbaynes
Tue 18 Jun 2024 07:55 UK
It’s 9pm on a Tuesday and a foreigner from Shanghai is cooking in my kitchen. I don’t speak Chinese and she doesn’t speak much English, so we both had to pantomime when she asked me where my knives and salt were.
I only met this woman 24 hours ago, but she’s staying at my house for another four days – all thanks to an ad on the London Underground.
“Turn your spare room into cash with Airbnb!” it promised. Well, I’m lucky enough to have a spare room and I never seem to have enough money (thanks to a litany of mounting bills and a desire for the occasional vacation), so could this be the answer?
I forced my husband to spend the weekend cleaning out our top floor room and soon I was snapping away, artfully framing various corners of the space to try and show it off (not helped by my cat who refused to get out of the way).
After downloading the app and signing up, I was paired with an Airbnb Superhost who gave me tips and offered support as I got to my first booking. He advised that instead of offering an introductory discount, as the app encouraged, the best way to start a business is to look up the prices of local deals and then undercut them. Once I built up a few reviews (I was aiming for five stars) I was able to raise my prices.
My neighbors were between £40-55 a night so I hedged my bets and started at £35 with a £10 cleaning fee. Within 24 hours I had my first booking. A young Border Force agent was training at Heathrow and needed a place to live. We gave him a set of keys, told him to check in, and five days later we were £117 better off.
After a few months of hosting (and – no bragging rights – ten five star reviews) we are now almost solidly booked at any given time.
Tips for smooth sailing when welcoming strangers
I have a pretty good geek radar and it pays to trust your gut when it comes to letting people in your front door – I’ve turned down reservations simply because I’m a bad vibe.
The guy who wanted to rent my room from 9am to 3pm to “meet a friend from London”? No way.
The man who wanted to stay for three months? It’s not for me.
The young gentleman who promised to pay me in cash on arrival? Thanks, but no thanks.
(You’ll notice a common theme with these – since I often work from home during the day, I’m not taking any chances).
Touch wood, everyone has He arrived friendly, polite, and most importantly, he didn’t smear feces on the walls, try to remove the sink, or do any other Airbnb horror story.
Read more from the Sky News Money blog here
How to get a good rating
Did I mention we have five stars? I don’t think there’s any real secret to getting a good rating, but I tried to think about what I would want someone to check in with. Make sure you have quality photos that match what the room actually is; don’t go crazy with filters.
We always make sure the place is clean, well presented and clutter free. Small, thoughtful touches like a TV with Sky box, a box of toiletries and a coffee machine also go a long way.
I’m also very honest about the fact that we have pets – the last thing I want is to book someone with allergies (and give me two stars!), so Louie sits front and center on the list.
Pitfalls to avoid
After the success of Airbnb, I decided to go one step further and list our room on Booking.com. Their management platform is clunky, difficult to use and you can’t verify the people who book – they just book instantly and that’s it, you stay with them. It’s also a bit of a chore to double check both platforms to make sure you don’t accidentally double book. But it generates significantly more bookings for us than Airbnb.
As boring as it is, you also have to consider the tax implications. The good news is that Airbnb is not taxed like Vinted or eBay (which has a £1,000 tax free rebate).
If you rent a furnished room in your main residence (ie not a second home) you can claim Relief when renting a room. The limit for this is £7,500 a year (or half if you share the income with your partner). The tax exemption is automatic, meaning you don’t have to do anything if you’re below that – but if you’re earning above that threshold, you’ll need to file a tax return. As we earn around £350 a month from our room, we fall well below that.
The rules will be different if you are renting out an entire house that you don’t live in at the same time, and you should also inform your home insurance of the change.
I’ve convinced my mum to put her guest room on stage and she’s had decent success too (apologies to the girls who threw up in her bin during Cheltenham race week and the woman who knocked over a star because she forgot to put a towel in the bathroom). Then I talked my brother’s girlfriend into giving it a try.
Read more:
Holiday money – where to buy it and one thing you mustn’t do
The most common holiday scams
However, I made one rather significant mistake: I forgot to get them to sign up with my host referral code. You can earn up to £268 for every host you refer, which means I’ve lost a pretty significant chunk of change. Then I forgot to refer them again when they moved to Booking.com so they lost hundreds of commission free bookings to their scheme. I try not to think about it too much…
Overall I loved using Airbnb – we turned our spare room into over £700 in just over two months. And while I’d like to live in a world where we could afford our daily expenses without flogging our spare room like a cheap roadside motel, we are where we are.
If you have room, a good people-screening radar, and are open to having your personal space invaded, this could be for you.
Call me first for a referral. (Note to editor: Just kidding).