Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve actually been working on making contracts and this should be very helpful.
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I really love your cottage and website. Very inspiring – I will take a look at RightSig for my direct bookings, thanks!
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Oh, the glitches! I currently have one where I am trying to book a guest via special offer (this is his fourth time with me and he is staying 8 nights) and the special offer keeps changing the dates I enter. So, he can’t accept because the days are wrong. We are trying it, again, because I REALLY DON’T want to call Air’s CS.
Ugh, that stinks. Make sure he has your contact info and have him direct book with you next time so he still gets a discount but you get paid the difference in the fees Air makes!
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I might even try that this time. I found that if you send your phone number in three different messages, along with random words, it goes through.
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Thank you for providing Rightsignature. After my last guest who not only could have broken down the A/C, he could have caused fire. There were several fires during that week in our Desert, since people are ignorant and not respectful at times.
I have a special Insurance, that cost more and they would want to see a rental agreement.
Thank you again!
Great advice on this thread! I lived below my means and bought a house at age 25 (almost unheard of among my millenial generation, unless you were smart enough to go into a skilled trade after high school). I still live below my means now, in my early 30s, and am doing better financially compared to my peers who make more in the private sector but eat out and take Ubers and would be homeless if they missed a paycheck.
I don’t invest in the stock market, but it is very important to diversify my income and have several months expenses in savings. I am a college professor, which used to be a very secure job, but now only 30% of professors are tenured or tenure track, and I’m part of the 70% without a permanent job. I’m lucky to have a full-time job at one university (and it is public, so the benefits are good) but I am on one-year contracts, so I am always prepared for the possibility of losing my job. I always take side gigs like editing papers, teaching online, consulting… and AirBnB! I used to have roommates before AirBnB, which helped me pay the mortgage. It wasn’t as much money, but was more reliable. I live in a desirable neighborhood and there are always more young people seeking housing than there are rooms available for rent. A friend of mine said I have the work ethic of an immigrant, which I took as a compliment, since immigrants are some of the hardest working people I know (and never turn down extra work). I definitely see AirBnB as one source of income, but I think some view it as the magical answer to all their money problems.
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Thank you! I am lucky to have money-wise working class parents who taught me to be frugal and and never take out credit for anything but a house. My aunt also bought me a book called “Smart Women Finish Rich” when I was 18, and I read it cover to cover and promptly started my Roth-IRA retirement.
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My daughter is younger but sounds like you. She was an immigrant baby and saw us struggling with money her whole childhood. Now she is very frugal, and saves and have IRA and stocks, and she is vey disciplined like you
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So you ARE invested in the stock market, which is smart. Love it or hate it. My mom tried to get me to start saving when I was younger but I didn’t start until my mid 30’s. If only I had the discipline you have.
I have a 401k through work too, I mean that I don’t really research stocks and invest savings into a company. I think my generation was too scared by the recession to trust the stock market. I was in grad school until I was 29 so I don’t have as much saved up as I’d like, but I was fortunate to be able to save rather than take in debt. I worked for the university so I was able to get a tuition waver.
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I have a side gig to recommend to you, I’ll PM you. 
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I haven’t read all the comments as I’m exhausted and need to go to bed so excuse me if it has been covered but, can someone explain the original post to me and how/why airbnb could override a strict cancellation policy and make a host pay?
You’re too exhausted to read the thread and you want someone else to summarize it for you? Okay, I’ll play along…
In a nutshell: Airbnb cares more about keeping guests booking than any single host’s profit. If they don’t have booking guests there is no business.
Next time, please be a good forum citizen and read the thread.
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A guest or anyone in the guest’s party can come down with an illness – even a sore throat (happened to me), even the day before or the morning of the reservation, and Airbnb will let them skate with a full refund and you get nothing. No recourse. Nothing.
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I had a similar problem one time but once I cancelled and started over it was fine. The system just thinks those days are not available.
I, too, cringe when I look at the many Air rentals in my immediate area, some of which are obviously in small apartment complexes that would definitely not allow sub-letting. It amazes me how dumb these tenants are in thinking they’re not going to get caught and why they don’t just find a roommate so they can avoid being kicked out on the street.
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Another point I was trying to make is that people need to stop playing the victim and take control of their lives. Depending on airbnb income is risky (and so are many other income producing activities). So when I see a post “I depend on this income, how can the city shut me down, how can air cancel the booking, fill in the blank with whatever happened” I wonder why they don’t have a back up plan. I thought a list of risks that perhaps not everyone had considered would be a good idea.
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thank you for sharing. Has anyone seen systematic cancellations and theft in other cities?