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At the end of 2017, we purchased our first Airbnb investment property in St. Louis, Missouri, and this episode is all about how we found the right house and how we run the business!

Want to check out our AirBnb listing or come stay at our place? Here is is our house on AirBNB

We plan on returning to St. Louis to live in the house for half of each year

I have some friends that already have invested in Airbnb properties, mostly other digital nomads as well. One of them even has a podcast and has been on this show, Jasper Ribbers, host of Get Paid for Your Pad. He also has a book about Airbnb which I used as a reference guide.

I was thinking about buying an Airbnb property for quite some time, so, about six months ago, we bought a property in St. Louis, Missouri. We had spent some time picking out the exact neighborhood that we wanted to live in. Interestingly, this was going to be a house with split duty – we are going to live there sometimes and its going to be an Airbnb sometimes.

We looked for a neighborhood which was a great Airbnb market, which for us means it is near universities, big hospitals, and large corporations.  We picked one that was triangulated in between some of these features. We knew there would be a lot of people coming into town for things like conferences, graduations, hospital visits, and things like that.

We partly investing in the location, we just needed to find a suitably priced and suitably sized property. We ended up buying a four-bedroom property. We could rent out the entire place that can sleep ten or twelve people. There’s not much competition on the Airbnb market for houses this big. We don’t get everyday bookings, so when someone books us for two or three days in a week, that’s a pretty good profitability. We bought a house that is over a hundred years old but had been recently remodeled.

We paid a premium to have a house that was move-in ready. The house, in addition to the granite countertops in the kitchen, looks great. Everything has been redone as it was also already being rented as an Airbnb. The people that refurbished the house had beds, couches, towels, wine glasses, things like that in the property already. It was all included in the sale of property. We were ready to start making money!

We knew that we were going to be travelling for six months, before we would ever move in to the house, so we had six months of Airbnb rentals to take advantage of. We wanted to start making money on that right away.

As we were looking at houses, we realized that some of the things needed some updates. Normally, if you were planning your house, you would want a something with great paint and furniture. Even though we didn’t love everything that came with the house, we decided, after getting the property, that we could improve it along the way. A lot could still be possibly done to the property which may improve the resale value of the home and the overall beauty of it.

We have been running our Airbnb this for six months now. We pay the former owner 20% of the rental income for the management and customer relations over the property. They have become our Airbnb mentor.

Our plan going forward how to make the most of our Airbnb property:

• Taking nicer photos. This does not add anything to the property, but it surely affects the way the property may be viewed. Interest is roused when there are captivating images of the place.

• Buying or adding useful furniture to the property, not just for the aesthetic appeal. Take into consideration that fact that it is your home, and you might need the essentials. Your guests would thank you for it too.

• Purchasing a pricing software. This adjusts the rental price of the property based on seasonality. Remember, your overall goal is to make more bookings and earn the highest possible value you could get over the property.

• Look for partnerships. Partner up with nearby establishments just like the universities and hospitals for recommendation.

So far, having the Airbnb has been a wonderful experience. The long-term vision is to have multiple Airbnb properties where we can transition in between.

If you’d like to know more, have plans of buying an Airbnb, or would like a place to rent over the weekend, drop us a line! We’d love to hear from you.