How To Make Money Listing Your Vacation Rental Online
Do you have an extra room in your house, or a vacation home that you don’t use year-round? Do you like to travel, and wouldn’t mind some extra money while you’re away? Using platforms like AirBnB, RentalSpot, and HomeAway are the ticket to making some extra cash with little to no effort on your part. These platforms allow you to rent out your residence for free or at a low cost, making marketing your listing easier than ever. At RentalSpot, we pride ourselves on free and quick listing, ensuring that the process is no-nonsense and intuitive for homeowners. Sites like AirBnB are equally as user-friendly.
Why should you list?
There are a number of reasons why renting out your vacation home is beneficial. First, you don’t have to seek out tenants yourself; online listing platforms have a high number of users searching for places to stay. Those users are also willing to pay a decent amount to stay in your house/apartment/guest room for a few nights, because the alternative is booking a hotel (and hotels are typically pretty pricey). Additionally, it’s easy to maintain a vacation home when people aren’t there 24/7 — you’ll likely have time between guests to clean up and stay for a few nights yourself. Furthermore, if you want to block off time for your own usage, you can absolutely do so. You don’t need to make your home available 365 days a year — only list it when it’s convenient for you. Most importantly, renting out your home allows you to make money that you wouldn’t be making otherwise. If you like to travel, you can cancel out your travel costs by renting out your home. If travel isn’t on your agenda, a little (or a lot) of extra money in your pocket is never a bad thing.
Hit the sweet spot, money-wise
When deciding how to price your home, you’ll first want to do some simple calculations to make sure that you are covering costs like mortgage, insurance, utilities, cleaning, and more. Once you’ve estimated the total costs, you’ll know how much money you need to make per month to break even, which is important when it comes to setting your price. From there, you can start to come up with a price for your home that allows you to net a profit. Pro tip: if you’re just renting out a guest room, you don’t need to calculate these monthly costs because you’ll be paying them anyway!
Consider demographics and season
We recommend doing a little qualitative research before you list your home. Check vacation rental sites to see how people in your city are pricing their properties. Then, determine who your audience is. Are you somewhere family-friendly? Are you in an area where people might come for business trips? Market your rental to fit the type of person you think is likely to want to stay there. If your place is more upscale and professional, don’t list it at a price college students could afford for a spring break trip. Next, consider what time of year you’re likely to get the most traffic. Are you somewhere that’s warm year round, or do you live somewhere with distinct seasons? What’s nearby that might make your property more attractive at certain times of year? Create your property’s listing with these things in mind, and consider varying your price based on time of year or type of guest.
Research rules
Before listing, make sure you read up on the local or state laws regarding vacation rentals. If you’re planning to rent out an apartment, you’ll want to check with your landlord to get permission to do so. You can find policies specific to each online platform on their respective websites, too. Reading up on the rules ahead of time will ensure you don’t get into trouble later on.
Simple & Easy
As we’ve mentioned, it doesn’t require much effort on your part to make money off of your home. Listing and renting on sites like AirBnB and RentalSpot has become incredibly popular in the past few years, and we don’t that will end anytime soon. So what are you waiting for? Take an afternoon to do some research, get your listing up and running on numerous vacation rental platforms, and start making some cash!
