With over 20,000 guests in various Airbnb listings I can definitely say that I cannot reliably make more money in our 'entire place' listings than I can with long-term tenants. Not only that, my workload and my risk is much higher. The only advantage I have with Airbnb is I can get some money between long-term tenants and my constant attentions keep my properties in top shape.
During high season I definitely make more money on a per day basis with Airbnb - particulary if I do all the cleaning and other work myself - but not when averaged over the year. In low season I sometimes can't even keep units listed enough to even cover my base expenses - let alone total expenses. I also can't lower the price to cover just these expenses without attracting local guests who nearly 100% of the time damage the property, eggregiously break rules, and/or generally cause much more work.
Neither the problem guests nor Airbnb usually cover most of the cost, and it often isn't worth the trouble to try to get them to. Many bad guests load just enough funds on a temp debit card to pay just for the one night, so you won't be able to recover anything. Airbnb might cover some of the expenses if you spend many hours over many weeks arguing for it. Far far worse though, is these type of guests will often give you a bad review when they know they have done wrong, which then causes Airbnb to temporarily pull all of your listings - not just the one listing getting a bad review - from view or may even auto-suspend all of your listings for up to 2 weeks before even investigating a guests complaint. We estimate that this problem alone has cost us tens of thousands of dollars.
P.S. Tell-tale signs that identifies a local/problem guest before they arrive? Answer: When they say, "Can I get in [early]?", "I'll check out [late].", "I'm just taking a break/relaxing", "Do you take cashapp?"; Incomplete or incoherent communication; Zero reviews; you see a local phone number once they book
