So, I had a chuckle a while ago, when Airbnb’s AI decided th...
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So, I had a chuckle a while ago, when Airbnb’s AI decided that ”Park for free” was one of the highlights of my new archipelag...
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We’re baby hosts, I guess you could say, having only joined the AirBnb hosting community in September. But to be honest, we had no intentions of ever joining the vacation rental ranks. That is, until opportunity knocked one day during our own vacation.
In July of this year, my family and I spent my birthday week in Gatlinburg, TN like we’ve been doing for several years. We rented a condo via AirBnb so we could have the place to ourselves and keep out of the crowds due to the pandemic. It was a gorgeous property – spacious, well-equipped, and with a stunning view of the Smoky Mountains.
During our stay, we discovered the dishwasher was broken. No biggie. But we contacted our host to let him know. Not only was he an amazing host who replaced the dishwasher the next day, but over the course of the conversation, he mentioned he was looking so sell the place if we happened to know anyone who was interested.
Oh, we knew people who were interested, all right. My husband and I had casually discussed buying property there for over a decade, but we’d never had the time or budget to start the search in earnest. It had always been one of those “maybe someday” things. We spent the next few days of our vacation, when we weren’t hiking or sightseeing, discussing if we should even consider it.
The easy thing to do would have been to just let the conversation fade and go back home with the hopes that we could stay there again next summer. However, the more we talked about it, the more we realized this could be a perfect opportunity. After all, we’d both worked hard, paid off debt, and had superb credit ratings. As icing on the opportunity cake, the owner made us an offer we would have been crazy to pass up.
Of course, owning the property was one thing. We would have to keep operating it as a short-term rental property to comfortably pay for it and better yet, to make it profitable. What the heck did we know about being vacation rental hosts? We’d stayed in several short-term rentals all over the country but hosting and renting are two very different sides of the same coin.
Once again, we took our hard-earned years of experience into account. First, we’re from Kentucky, so hospitality runs in our blood. We’d been raised to always be ready for company with some good food, a pitcher of sweet tea, and a ready guestroom. In addition to that, I had spent a couple years after we’d married working in a hotel in Louisville. I did every job but maintenance there, and boy, did I have some memorable experiences. I had even written a rom-com series based on those tales.
As I'm sure you've guessed by now, we decided to take the chance.
By the time September came, we had the deed in hand, we had read several resources about hosting on AirBnb, and listened to numerous podcasts about it. We even attended some webinars. I built us a website and started Facebook and Instagram pages. In mid-September, we hosted our first guests in our Gatlinburg home-away-from-home.
It’s been an amazing experience so far. Sure, it’s a little challenging at times, especially being remote hosts. But we have a solid system and schedule, along with a great team of professionals to help us make every guest feel like they’re right at home.
We’re now keeping our eyes open for a second property. You better believe, if that opportunity comes knocking, we will not hesitate to open the door.
Happy holidays and happy hosting (and vacationing) everyone!
~Misty
