Hello everyone! I was wondering if any of you want to invest, working on buying a place and turning into AirBnb listing, or you just done that?
I’ve been doing research and found that Kansas City MO was a great opportunity. Hip 1 bedroom loft in historical downtown you can buy for about $100k and rent for $140 a night on average. The fact that many hosts had many listings was proving my assumption about high ROI.
I was getting ready to book my flight to view some properties when I found the city (KC) has banned AirBnb. What a bummer!
So my question is what is your strategy when it comes to investing in the next AirBnb place? Any ideas are very welcome. I’ve been using Air DNA and AirBnb together with Zillow to make my own conclusion. I am now looking into Columbus and Minneapolis. In North Cali you can’t find anything under 700k - in a best case. Feel free to PM me.
Thank you 
So if you have a property in a city other than the one where you live, how will you host?
Stay home. Host in your own house.
In all cases I would recommend to buy a property that would still be profitable if you rent it to a long-term tenant (should you not be able to do short term rentals due to a change in regulations), and in a market you know well, ie. not a market you’ve just read about in the news…
There are other investments out there than vacation rentals 
Hi @Barthelemy! Thank you for the advice - its a good point. I am definitely checking month to month average rent in the area to have a plan B in case of changes in regulation.
I am also open to long term rental and it’s even better bc its much less hassle. Hovever I was not able to find a decent ROI yet (been looking at Vegas, Texas, Florida)…
I have been browsing Airbnb listings in my area (eastern suburbs of Paris) lately and what surprised me is that listings in neighborhoods with a bad rep do get quite a lot of bookings and good reviews.
I thought that you would need a “good” neighborhood (with historic authenticity or resort-like architecture, middle to upper-class people, transports and shops within walking distance) to make a successful vacation rental and much to my surprise it seems that as long as there are shops and a metro/train station within a 5 minutes walk, people book and are happy with the location.
What I am trying to say is that there are good investment opportunities in neighborhoods which are not sought-after. I would feel guilty myself to make people stay in these places for their vacation, but hosts there seem to have a better ROI than I do and guests seem to be happy.
I totally understand what you are saying. I am perfectionist and of course started my search just like you said with big, popular cities, in historical part, or city center, new buildings only and skyline views and etc. Of course these places come with the price.
I guess the confusion is that there is too many options as I definitely can’t buy anything in my area, it’s the most expensive part of US.
If you don’t mind me asking, do you have a current listing in Paris? How is it going with all the regulations and other issues Paris has been facing recently? 
I would not buy a place just to put on AirBNB. This is because the laws are constantly changing; and technology is constantly changing.
We bought this flat as an investment. We had it on the normal rental market. Our tenant bought their own house and moved out in July. The building is due to have the (only!) lift replaced in March next year, and we didn’t think we could get a long-term tenant for a flat on the 8th floor if they knew they had to use the stairs for 6-8 weeks especially as our summer sometimes drags on…
So we put it on AirBNB. We did our sums of what our cost per day is (mortgage, strata fees, gas, water, electricity, council rates) and weekly cost; we looked at our “competition” and priced the flat accordingly. We’ll use the downtown in the 6-8 weeks to refurbish the kitchen and bathroom which should improve its capital value and rental potential.
Our philosophy on investments is that we only invest in things we know about. We know and live in this city, and I’m looking to potentially invest with my sister back home. We’re the same on the stock market. I think with AirBNB it’s important because we have been able to give guests good recommendations - like our favourite restaurants for Sunday brunch or favourite wineries.
Best of luck.
I’ll tell you a place I just looked at because we had some guests from there and I had been there a few times and thought it was a really beautiful place - scenically speaking!
It’s Boise, ID. I did the same thing you did - I checked out the Airbnb rentals and their prices and calendars. They were getting really good prices and their calendars seemed well booked. Then I checked home prices in those areas on Zillow - and it looked like a great match! Home prices very low, Airbnb prices pretty high.
I have no idea about the regulatory situation out there, and didn’t bother to look because I’m not in a position to invest right now anyway. But that might be a good place to check out.
Let us know how it goes!
Thank you for sharing @Ash953!
I agree that we should not depend on AirBnb and AirBnb income because it’s a risk, but any opportunity will be a risk, especially stock market- not sure how you guys are doing it, for me it was too stressful to put up with
Every time we get the building repaired or elevator gets broken, I freak out because I know it will affect the guests’ overall experience and most likely will hurt my raiting.
I hope you will find a way to continue getting cashflow on your flat!
Best wishes!
Hey Jon!!! Thank you for a tip - I will check it out! You will see a new post from me if I end up getting a place there - or somewhere else. My dream is to set up few AirBnb accross US or even outside - and manage them (of course having property manager as well)
Great post Ash953. Simply a great strategy and plan.
My listing ( www.airbnb.com/rooms/7716963 ) is in the area of Disneyland Paris. It’'s in a pretty, walkable neighborhood, though the metro is not within walking distance (about 2.5 miles) but my partner and I believe that the nice views make up for the distance to the metro.
Regarding STR regulations, there are strict regulations in Paris center and a few inner suburbs (turning an apartment into a short term rental requires a kind of building permit, and in the center you have to buy commercial rights) but regulations are very permissive in outer suburbs like mine.
In my opinion real estate prices in Paris center are too high anyway to be worth the investment, unless the plan is to buy a pied-à-terre for your own use.
The apartment that I rent in the 17th arr. is actually their home, and they only rent when they are at the country home. Obviously, I plan my trips to co-ordinate with their country time. I love the location… only blocks from the 8 apartments where my cousins live; two blocks from two fabulous patisseries, and a fabulous street market only five blocks away.
They are fully licensed. The home is filled with their own possessions, but they do a great job at emptying just enough so we can move a few things into the cupboards.
But, my criteria is being close to my family; not to Disney which has no interest for me.
@Anastasia_Stal as you know we have also been looking to buy a 4th ABB property. A lot of the research I did involved reading ‘top vacation trends’ articles, cross refrencing with real estate cost and air dna rental data, i als did my own research by scrubbing ABB listings in the are for pricing, calendar availability, and reviews (since Review dates tend to give a better estimate of how busy a property is). Also, you need to check local laws etc. Some interesting places we are looking into: Indio, Nashville, Gatlinberg, Minneapolis
Be assured that I was not trying to sell my listing to anyone here ! I was just answering Anastasia_Stal’s question :)…
Barth… Are you French? Surely English is your first language?
Thank you for sharing your listing- it’s lovely! I asked because I was also thinking to buy in Europe (love Europe!) I plan to go to Greece this summer to check the situation
Lol we know you don’t!
Hi @azreala!))) Thank you for your reply))) It’s exactly what I was doing for last week and was wondering it it was a more efficient way - I guess it’s not! Real estate investors group suggest to look for 20% ROI in a first year, have not found it yet. I am currently looking at Minneapolis as you mentioned, also Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati. I will also look into Palm Dessert and Indio, but there you need to get something really fancy to be booked all year.