Becoming an Airbnb host, why and how?

Published on 22 February 2018 · updated in 2021

(This article was published in 2018 on pingoo.com, then lightly updated in 2021)

There are quite a few advantages to living in Montpellier: the weather, the city, the beach, the mountains, the people, all that… but also and above all the rents! With an extra bedroom for the same rent as in Paris, I seriously looked into the idea of offering it occasionally on Airbnb. I've been regularly hosting strangers at my place for a while now, and I draw a very positive conclusion from it.

I'm going to try to talk about this as simply as possible, telling you about the positive aspects, the constraints, and then giving you a few tips.

It's lucrative. In my case if I rented out the second bedroom of my apartment every night, it would pay 3/4 of the rent without any problem. Depending on your tax situation it can also bump up your taxes a bit, but in any case it stays profitable. If you rent out a whole apartment, the landlord's permission is preferable; if you just rent a room it's not necessary.

It helps people out, loads. I live in a city where the hotel offering is pretty lame and expensive. Lots of people are just passing through and are happy to be able to get a room at a lower cost, especially students. With the big bonus of being able to use all the rooms, including the kitchen to cook whatever they want without going to a restaurant.

You meet loads of new people! It's a great way to socialize, you communicate with travelers of all nationalities, all ages and all walks of life, and sometimes it makes for lovely encounters. I've rarely felt uncomfortable with the people I've hosted.

You improve your English. Wow, you can't imagine how much. Forcing yourself to speak English from time to time, when your guests are foreign, is really cool.

And loads of other things: it amuses the cats, it forces you to maintain the apartment and clean regularly, etc.

• And sometimes it's a pain

– Because sometimes you don't feel like having people at your place and you just want to stay quiet. – Because sometimes people are noisy (the thing about Spaniards isn't a myth). – Because some travelers are tiresome.

Beyond these few details, honestly it's nice to do. You have to take the plunge and overcome a bit of the natural shyness you have about hosting people at your place. Once past the first time, you get into the habit, you give the tour, you explain the apartment, and in the end you let people live their lives in the apartment, and it's cool.

If you have a room you're not using you can rent it out, or even rent out your whole apartment when you go on vacation for example. Airbnb offers quite a bit of security to prevent shady people from coming to your place, as well as some insurance in case of a problem. You set your own prices, and Airbnb can even suggest ones that match the market. You can rent a few days, every day, whatever, everything is infinitely configurable and really reassuring. Once you're going you'll see it runs on its own and quite naturally, with the added bonus of something rather fun about receiving positive ratings and comments about your hosting.

• How do you become a good Airbnb host?

To be very honest, most of the best practices for getting good ratings on Airbnb come down to common sense, in my view. Now, you have to admit that a lot of people have crappy ratings there, so common sense doesn't work for everyone! So I'm going to start by describing my place a bit, its strong points and its weak points, then explain how I optimize all that!

I have a relatively large 95m² apartment in the center of Montpellier, located between the train station and Place de la Comédie, you can hardly get more convenient. It's well laid out and I have a guest room; that's the one I rent out from time to time on Airbnb. A bathroom, a toilet, and that's it. It nonetheless has some big weak points; the first is the dilapidation of the building and of certain parts of the apartment, typically the faucets are old and worn, the bathtub is 5,000 years old and therefore has ugly old stains that look "dirty", and there's a lot of noise in the street (bars and other crusty punks with dogs). There are also two annoying cats in the apartment, that doesn't help.

The welcome First thing, be flexible about your travelers' arrival times. If you yourself have somewhat rigid hours, arrange to have someone, a friend or a shopkeeper, who can give your place's keys to your visitors in your absence. Be clear about these points and always reassure travelers from your very first exchanges. On their arrival, make sure to show them the whole apartment, remind them of the rules and customs, and show them everything that matters (coffee machine, toilet, etc.) I always leave bath towels for guests, as well as a bottle of water and a few sweets in their room, Uber style! And they're rather pleased as a result. Right away I ask them if they want me to recommend places to visit, restaurants, etc. I also offer them a map of the city (picked up at the tourist office). I also leave a few newspapers in the room, including some local press. I've also left a little tourist book about Montpellier.

Still in the room, there's everything needed to charge any type of phone, a television with Netflix (thanks to the Apple TV plugged into it), and a box full of earplugs, to help swallow the pill of the noise outside (and of the cats meowing at night). It's important to immediately settle the "problems" related to the apartment as soon as your guests arrive, it reassures them. Typically when showing the bathroom to visitors, I immediately show them the bathtub, explaining that no, it's not dirty, but that it's old. I clear the problem up right away. Same for the cats, I tell them about the worst, namely the cat that meows at night and wreaks havoc; that way, at least, if the cat is cool, the traveler will be happy.

The apartment in general It has to be clean, but like spotless, every day. So I do a daily clean. The dust, the vacuum, the cat hair, etc. Everything is always clean. If ONE thing is dirty, your visitor will spot it immediately and give you a bad rating. It also has to be reasonably well decorated obviously, well equipped, and relatively neutral. As for neutrality, it mostly comes down to tidiness; if everything is in its place, then it'll be fine. If you leave your daily stuff lying around all over (clothes, a grocery bag, or whatever), it's dead. So I tidy everything up, all the time. I admit I'm pretty obsessive, so that helps.

In the same vein, avoid leaving old soaps lying around in the bathroom, empty the trash regularly, clean the cats' litter every day, brush the cats regularly. IN SHORT, BE CLEAN.

Take care with the equipment made available to travelers; many want an iron or a hairdryer, you have to have that on hand nearby. The Airbnb site lets you list the basic equipment that will give your visitors a good stay. I tend to tell travelers they can use absolutely everything, whether in the kitchen, the fridge, the bathroom, the bath products or the food, everything is open bar. In practice no one abuses it, so it costs nothing to offer it.

Also try to have an acceptable Internet connection with the Wi-Fi clearly indicated in the room you're renting. Well, in my case it's a slow ADSL, but here too I announce it right away, so no surprises.

There you go. Put like this it really sounds like an ultra constraining thing, but in reality it's really just common sense. Put yourself in the travelers' shoes and you'll immediately understand what matters, or what matters less.

By Paingout