Dobrý deň, neviem, ako odoslať daňové identifikačné číslo. V...
Dobrý deň, neviem, ako odoslať daňové identifikačné číslo. Vie mi niekto poradiť? Ďakujem
Hi folks,
As new hosts, my wife and I decided to calculate how much it actually costs us to provide our space for a single night, in the hope that it would help us with pricing, so we wondered if anyone else had calculated their cost per night lately?
We were taking a leaf out of Alex Polizzi's book, since we quite enjoy watching the Hotel Inspector. Having watched a recent episode, we learned that we had fallen for Alex's biggest gotcha - running an accomodation based business without calculating the bare minimum we need to charge in order to break even. We were operating on the assumption that if money comes in, we must be making a profit somewhere. Terrible planning, now that I think about it.
I thought it would be hard to whip up a calculation, given that we don't yet have 1 years worth of profit & loss to look back at, but after about 30 minutes we managed to come up with a very good picture of what our direct costs are likely to be (the costs that would no longer incur if we stopped renting our space) and what our indirect costs are likley to be (the costs we attribute to our Airbnb business for tax purposes, but we would incur anyway if we ended the business tomorrow).
Here's a close example of what we ended up with:
Cost of 1 night in my Airbnb | |||
Income per night | |||
Base price (average) | $147.12 | ||
Cleaning fee (average) | $13.81 | ||
$160.93 | |||
Direct costs | |||
Airbnb 3% service fee | $4.83 | ||
Cleaning costs (average) | $19.73 | ||
Gardening (average) | $16.44 | ||
Linens & laundry | $5.43 | ||
Toiletries & consumables | $1.01 | ||
Food supplies | $9.39 | ||
Batteries & lightbulbs | $0.27 | ||
Garbage | $0.26 | ||
Superhosttools | $0.30 | ||
Accounting | $1.37 | ||
Printing | $0.07 | ||
Gas & Electricity | $6.16 | ||
Advertising & promotion | $0.10 | ||
Maintenance & Depreciation | $6.47 | ||
Office supplies | $0.11 | ||
Income taxes | $5.58 | ||
$77.52 | |||
GROSS PROFIT PER NIGHT | $83.41 | 52% | |
Indirect costs | |||
Alarm monitoring | $0.69 | ||
Council rates | $6.43 | ||
House insurance | $2.93 | ||
Mortgage interest | $54.89 | ||
Telephone and internet | $1.64 | ||
Bank charges | $0.12 | ||
Parking permits | $0.17 | ||
Vehicle mileage | $2.19 | ||
$69.06 | |||
TOTAL COST PER NIGHT | $146.58 | ||
NET PROFIT PER NIGHT | $14.35 | 9% |
The key assumptions that we found changed the numbers (particularly indirect costs) were the occupancy rate and floor area for attributing overheads. Even so, it was helpful to see what both the gross profit and net profit were likely to be.
We're not experts so I'd be interested in what examples other people have!
~ Ben
Wow, there is not a big margin of 'wiggle' room there for you Ben!
I decided to use your calculations against my profit and loss statements and this is how hosting comes out for me.......
For me things are a bit different Ben because I live on the same property as the listing cottage and many of those items are expenses which would be incured regardless of whether I Airbnb listed or not. In fact the situation is even better than that because I am able to write off a lot of the general household expenditure against the Airbnb profit and loss.
My net result from last year was a disposable profit return of 68%! My gross income was $26,840 and my net profit was $18,452.00. This equates to $354 pr week and coupled with the $790 per week we get from other income investment sources, this gives us a nice comfortable living. We are even able to snag a bit of age pension on top of that would you believe!
Airbnb has been good for me but, as many will tell you....it's not for everyone!
Mate, if I was getting 9%, I would find something else to do with my time!
Cheers......Rob
Hey thanks for sharing @Robin4 that’s really interesting! I think we are very similar where our indirect costs would still be incurred, Airbnb or not. That’s particularly true of our mortgage interest, where we are allowed to apportion it to the Airbnb to reduce tax (but we’d have to pay it anyway if we didn’t do the Airbnb thing). Our listing is part of our house too.
What it did tell me though was there would be no point in running out to acquire a specific mortgage to buy a separate new Airbnb in my city... gearing of 9% is way too close to bother with, for sure. Property values are distorted in NZ though, so it makes any property rental a high risk investment, so that wasn’t surprising to us to be honest...
How do you calculate the cleaning cost @Robin4? Are you not giving yourself a living wages? Or is it average since you have more than one night stays? If I were to give myself a payment my cleaning fee of about AUD 25 is way below a living wages.
Mariann 🙂
No I am not Mariann, because I don't have to. I don't Airbnb because I have to, I do it because I want to. Although we are all running a business to a certain degree the cost of me cleaning my listing does not have to equate to what an external cleaning service would charge....I don't have to be competetive simply for myself!
Although I need to know I am making something, I don't have to put a commercial value on what I do. The $354 per week net which we average year round by hosting, coupled with our other income helps me in my retirement to have a really comfortable lifestyle.
My 'cleaning fee' is not really a cleaning fee! That money goes straight into a damage fund that I can draw on when needed to replace items that may be lost in some way or require special attention to restore. That fund currently sits just over $2,100, and if something gets broken, stolen or damaged in some way, I don't hassle Airbnb, I don't try to lock the guest in some dungeon in irons chasing payment! .There is a cost to hosting and we just have to accept that and allow for it.....I just fix what needs to be fixed and get on making my $354 per week to do what ever I want to!
The thrill for me has been the fact that I have been able to be able to do this. Without any help at all I have singlehanded turned this place around from being a 'knock-down' proposition to being somewhere a lot of people want to stay.
We have gone from this.............to this
And the icing on the cake, we get to meet a lot of beautiful people.
Mariann, I wouldn't really care if it didn't make us anything, it's been a lot of fun, a sense of achievement and, a nice part of my life!
Cheers......Rob
@Robin4 gorgeous, just gorgeous Rob. It's so satisfying knowing you brought a place back from the brink and turned it into something amazing. Youv'e done a stunning job. I need to plan a visit 🙂
I constantly wish I had taken more photos of (what we used to call) the crap shack we bought before we rennovated it and made an AirBnb. It looked so similar to your before pictures... leaks in the roof... no kitchen... stank bathroom... and we did everything ourselves.... even the plumbing and electrical (biggest jobs). Hell I remember the day when my wife searched out a "how to replace a toilet" guide on youtube. We watched it, then 2 hours later our toilet was installed. The plumber (friend who popped by to sign it off) said it was the best job he'd seen and offered me a job lol! Electrician did the same... in fact I enjoyed that part so much I'm proud to say I have applied for an electrician apprenticeship starting in a few months.
AirBnb has given me inspiration to do things I hadn't even thought about doing. I didn't find a line for that in the spreadsheet 🙂
I love every time you put up these amazing pictures @Robin4! I'm in awe of the job you have done!
As for my question the cleaning fee was just used as a measurement towards the cost. @Ben551 and you list up different indirect costs such as "telephone/internet" and "vehichle mileage" broken down pr night. Then all other costs should be included, no? Cleaning is time consuming. Time is money/cost. Even if you do it yourself. It is "stealing" time you could have spent for example with Meals on wheels or in your dungeon/man-cave listening to music... So it would still be a cost in your budgets? I'm down to technicalities here. Since that is the topic: what does it ACTUALLY cost to host one night?
Mariann 🙂
What @Ben551 wanted to know and myself, we set a nightly listing amount and want to know what comes out of our pockets to achieve that goal.
As a third party what you are saying is correct and if I had to pay someone to come and do my cleaning, that would be a cost I would have to take into account.
As far as my profit and loss statement to the government is concerned I claim $30 per listing turn-around as a cleaning cost, because I am entitled to! I am entitled to claim my efforts spent in order to earn an income. But the laws of business say, what one earns and what one pays tax on are two entirely different things!
Cleaning cost me nothing out of my pocket apart from a few cents worth of cleaning consumables...detergents, toilet cleaners, polishes, cleaning cloths.......it is my effort rather than my cost. Those other costs you mentioned, phone, internet, car are all physical costs!
My 'Cleaning fee' is a potential damage fund and the only time I access that is to return something in the listing to the condition it was in before the last guest.
Gardening is something else that I cannot put a figure to as far as hosting is concerned because I would have to do it anyway and the fact that I host is irrelevant to gardening!
Garbage disposal is another thing. I already claim a percentage of my council rates under indirect costs which includes garbage disposal, so I cannot 'double dip' and claim it as an item again!
All other items on that list are costs which come out of my pocket so Mariann, what Ben has done here is provide me with is a 'quick reference' framework to work out exactly how much I spend as a pecentage of how much I receive for each hosting night!
Re the property photos, you would love where I am at the moment. I spent yesterday cleaning out the potting shed. I was so full of junk that had built up over time I could not put the lawnmower away. Now after yesterday you could almost eat a meal out of there......almost!
I am a lot slower than I used to be but, everything gets done in the end!
I have just started another mozaic for daughter Sarah and her partner. I have my moxaics scattered all around the place and when Ade drives me mad enough mozaicing is good therapy....
The one for daughter will be a Rhode Island Red Hen on a white background, something they can hang in their chook house!
Cheers......Rob
You really are what we call a tusenkunstner @Robin4 (don't bother to translate it. "Allrounder" loses the aspect of beauty that is present in our word.). Your mozaic is breathtaking.
I'm studying the differences between finance costs and tax costs at the moment. I'm learning of the differences. But we are taught Norwegian rules as international rules are further down the line on the masters degree... So they will not be completely equal to Australian rules 🙂 But I was mostly interested in your explanation on how you resonate around it. I also clean myself. But my rooms can be used by me all the time since they are in-house. I use them to study and dry clothes when I don't have guests. So they need to be cleaned anyhow. Almost like your garden (and mine), it needs to be taken care of. So I don't see my cleaning as a cost either. Being a messy person I see the extra cleaning as a bonus in stead 🤣🤣😂
But it is still a cost of hosting since I have to do it more frequent... If my profession was cleaning I would actually have to PAY taxes to clean for hosting.
My shed is ready for you to organize and tidy any day, Rob! (Btw... I can't have anything liquid in there... It will freeze...)
Mariann 🙂
I love your attitude AND your garden!
Amazing! Thank you for sharing!
I am not sure how to copy your list. But, my numbers are more like yours @Robin4.
My total direct costs are $78.92
Indirect costs are $69.72
Total costs $148.64
Net profit per night $100
Which is 100/250*100= 40%
I have an advantage Denise because I am required to keep a monthly profit and loss running statement, so I can lay my hands on these figures quickly.
Each November I am required to submit a profit and loss statement to Centrelink because of my age. Strange as it may seem I am still eligible for a small age pension despite our earnings, mainly due to the fact that I can income and asset split with my disabled wife!
I don't feel bad about that....all through my working life I was a major taxpayer. Running my own business I not only had to pay tax from year to year I also had to pay provisional tax on what the government thought I might earn in the next year! In other words I was paying tax a year ahead of the taxable year. One year we had to sell a block of land to cover our provisional tax bill of around $30,000.....so I don't feel at all bad about clawing a bit of that back now in my latter years.
Denise, I would never say running an Airbnb is the path to riches....$354 per week to cater for strangers on your property for 5 nights out of 7 year round is not a great return!
But as part of the financial jigsaw puzzle that makes up our life, it's a bloody great leg up!
Cheers........Rob
Hey thanks for chiming in guys. I can see the big difference (lever) is going to be around whether people have a mortgage or lease cost to attribute to their indirect costs.
For our situation I tend to look at it as a tax adjustment, because we’d have to pay it anyway even if we stopped the Airbnb tomorrow. Our Airbnb is a portion of our house, after we reconfigured and split the place in half to create a self contained place. So it’s not like we can sell that half if we stopped renting it out tomorrow.
But we decided it would be a good idea to show it, attributing our mortgage interest as a % of floor area, the same way the tax man does. This allowed us to look at the figures from another angle, i.e. would it be worth going out and buying a separate Airbnb property with its own mortgage attached? Are the returns worth it? From our figures, the answer is a fair “no” to that question, largely driven by the inflated house prices where we live vs. rental income.
I guess I’m quite interested in that aspect, to see if other hosts reach a similar conclusion... or whether there are parts of the world where the gearing is better (where taking on more debt to buy a separate Airbnb is worth it for the return).
That said, there is the school of thought that “as long as the gearing is positive at all” then you can own the property, pay the mortgage, and hope capital gains bring a profit when you sell. In our case it’s not a school we subscribe to particularly, because the NZ property market is nowhere near a boom (in fact people have said for years that it’s closer to bust). So for us capital gains aren’t a driver for our decision making when it comes to acquiring a rental property.
@Ben551@Robin4, I agree that we will never get rich with Airbnb!
We took out a mortgage and bought the house we rent out as a holiday home/ potentially where we will retire.
Airbnb is paying the mortgage off for us, as well as providing emplyment to our wonderful cleaning lady. We are earning the same/more than if we had rented the home out to long term with the bonus that we simply book it out for the dates we want to visit. Win win all around...except I spend a long time on the computer!