Are you dying to invest in an Airbnb but not in a financial position to do so? Do you wish you could make money in a side hustle to fund an Airbnb purchase?
If so, you need to listen to Episode 16 of the Host Coach Airbnb Investing Podcast! Today we’re sharing 6 ways to generate solid cash flow through Airbnb WITHOUT owning a home!
Tune in to learn easy ways to create an Airbnb side hustle and immediately start making money with little to no investment on your end.
Topics discussed in this episode:
- How to tap into the Airbnb Experience opportunity
- Money-making uses for fields & wooded areas
- Tents, teepees, & tiny houses
- Leveraging the demand for co-hosts
- Airbnb arbitrage possibilitie
Host Coach Airbnb Podcast Episode 16 Show Notes:
Whether you're a student, mom, farmer, or working professional, trying to create financial freedom, these are easy ways to dip a toe into Airbnb and immediately start making money with little to no investment on your end.
Airbnb moneymaking opportunities come in all shapes and sizes. While most of us think about a house or a cabin, when we hear about Airbnb cashflow, there are so many ways to make money without owning a property.
How to Make Money Through Airbnb Experiences
The number one is Airbnb experiences. So if you have zero money, but live in an area where there are existing Airbnbs, those guests are looking for experiences to make their trip that much better. And they're happy to pay for those experiences. So think about what is unique to your area. And if you're in a rural area, city guests will find the most mundane things absolutely enchanting. Case in point: I grew up in rural Pennsylvania. but now live in D.C. I literally went to a winery, not because their wine was good, but because I could drink wine with a cow. So this is what we're talking about.
People also think about the skills that you have and think about what you have access to. Do you have access to the woods, farmland, hiking trails, rivers, lakes, kayaks, fishing equipment? And from there, then you can think about what sort of experiences you can offer. Things like nature walks, being a fishing guide, a town history tour, a street art tour, especially in cities. When we lived in Athens, Greece, people paid 80 or 90 euro to walk around and see the most unique graffiti art in the city, and it was really cool, actually. It's something I would never have thought of. Nature photography, being able to show guests where the best places to spot and capture wildlife are in your area, or if there are waterfalls or just something beautiful.
And then back to this whole idea of what are you good at? If you know how to knit or cook or watercolor, any skill that you have - you could turn into a class that people would do in your area. You don't even have to be good at something with a specific skill, right?
Think about what are your interests? There's brewery tours and distillery tours, and you can mix and match your special interests with these opportunities. And if you have interest in common, it makes it that much easier to enjoy providing an experience to these guests. Also, any kind of animal encounter from cuddling with farm animals, goat yoga, and what said earlier - drinking wine with cows. People are happy to pay for it! I double checked experiences tab on Airbnb and all of them were there.
Another one that's fantastically fun and easy is a local food tour. You don't have to make the food, just take people on a tour of your favorite places for appetizers or authentic Pennsylvanian cuisine, whatever it is. People are going to be interested, especially in food.
Another one is offering an experience where you take photos of people. So this is for the Instagram generation, the TikTok generation, getting photos of you posed by a waterfall, walking through historic downtown wherever, anywhere. Things like that are attractive and people are willing to pay for them.
And if you need more ideas outside of these are just the beginning. Yeah, just look on the experiences tab on the Airbnb platform, there's experiences ranging in price from $25 a person for animal cuddling or up to $150 for that walking photo shoot or even bee keeping classes. That money adds up, especially when you get a group of five to 10 people together!
Even if you're an introvert, and don't love the idea of interacting with people directly, there are also online experiences that people pay for on Airbnb. And this is everything from pre-trip itinerary planning. So for example, if you live in a city destination that people love to come to you can help them decide where to book their Airbnb that's walkable to X, Y, Z destinations, where to get reservations for certain restaurants and really help them tailor an experience that makes sure their trip is perfect. People are willing to pay $40 and onward for that experience.
Another really fun example that I saw this morning was zen doodling for $17 a class. And if you're unfamiliar, it's where you have an open piece of paper and a pen or colored pencil and you don't really look, but you doodle, and it's very stress relieving, fun and interesting. So these experiences do not require a degree or high levels of skill. It's just having local knowledge or a fun activity that other people can engage with.
How to Make Money with Campsites
Number two on the list is campsites. If you or a friend or family member have any kind of farmland or wooded lot, you have an opportunity to make money. Guests are looking for off the beaten path, places to camp and are happy to pay for them. Outside of Airbnb, there's Hip Camp, which is a site that allows guests to look for cool camp places and camp in their tents or RVs.
These sites range from $30 to a $100 a night based on their location. You also have the opportunity to upsell guests things like firewood or s'mores kits for additional revenue. So, just by clearing out an area of your land or a friend's land or family member's land, taking a few photos, and create a listing you can begin to monetize something you already have.
There's also a camping filter tab on Airbnb. You do need to provide a little bit more. You would need to provide a tent or some sort of structure for the guest to sleep in. Which leads us to our third option, which is tents, teepees, and yurts.
Creating Airbnb Cash Flow with Tents, Teepees, and Yurts
There's a category in Airbnb where you just click at the top for these kind of micro amenity places. There are successful listings that are just a tent or teepee set up with a little bit of a view that do extremely well. So, if you've got land that you've made into a campsite, you can add a tent and list it on Airbnb.
This doesn't have to be an expensive tent. There are 2 person Coleman tents for sale on Amazon for $30. There are some fancy tent options too. The more interesting the accommodations are the more money you can charge per night. So again, people want what they don't have. We're selling a dream: glamping in a remote forest or glen, with the farmland and a bordering stream.
I got really excited and jumped on Amazon and I found a pagoda tent for two people on Amazon for $189. The shape is unique, it's super cool. I would want to stay in it much more than just a regular tent, which means I would pay more... and your guests would pay more!
On Alibaba there was a canvas yurt with netted skylights for $300, and it was amazing just from the two tiny photos on their website. So, I can only imagine what it would look like in a beautiful location. Amazon also offers a luxury glamping bell tent, which is as lovely as it sounds for $500. So these are not high dollar expenditures. And, they could be customer funded. You could rent out just a camping space, save the profits, and then use that to roll into one of these nicer tents.
If you're thinking about a yurt, which if you aren't familiar, there is circular structure, they're a little more heavy duty than a tent so they can be used for four season stays and you usually build a wooden floor. That's more of a $2,000 to $5,000 investment. But like we said, your customers can help fund those purchases, and add other little amenities like bistro lights or a fire pit. You can get a fire ring at Walmart for $40, add a hammock and a couple chairs around it and you can really start to crank the prices up.
I found a yurt on Airbnb charging over $400 a night, and that's more than some Airbnb homes. Then, consider offering experiences to go along with that for even more cash flow. So, we're here telling you how you can make money very easily without really putting any money out yourself.
I love when people deliver on their promises of free instead of just telling you it's free... but not really. You have to spend on it.
Airbnb Tiny Houses
Moving into a little bit of spending would be tiny houses. People love tiny houses, and even those who would never want to live in one full-time are curious enough to stay in one. And once again, tiny houses have their own search tab on Airbnb. There are enough people looking to stay in tiny homes, that is an actual tab filter to find accommodations around the world. A quick search just looked at the state of Virginia, showed tiny houses charging pretty much a minimum of $150 a night.
If you put that tiny house in the clearing you already made with a fire pit chairs and solar twinkle lights, boom, you're seriously cash flowing. Heads up, you would need to pull electric and figure out what sort of bathroom system you're going to put into your tiny house. So it's more upfront work, and probably some more expenditure on your side, but you'll also have a more permanent structure that you could use four seasons and make more money with.
And if you're like, oh, that's great, Danielle, but I don't even know where to get a tiny house. I fell down a tiny houserabbit hole -what was that like a year ago? And I found this company called Tumbleweed Tiny Homes, and they have beautiful designs. These designs can be made very quickly. They're highly customizable and they transport really easily.
So when you dive into the world of tiny houses, you're like, "oh, they're just perfect and they're where I want them to be." No, you actually have to get them up the side of the mountain and through highways and under bridges.
But this company delivers, and has really fast turnaround. When I checked out other companies, I thought, "oh, I want this house." Their response: you can put your down payment down and it'll be ready in three years. Which is very unhelpful if you're trying to create financial freedom now. The base model at Tumbleweed starts at about a hundred thousand dollars, which is pricey, but they have financing options in-house and these are super fancy tiny houses. Because I love them, and so I'm certain you could find one for less. I just couldn't help myself once I found that particular website.
Expert Tip: be sure to check your local zoning and hospitality laws around tiny houses.
One of the counties that we invest in does not allow short-term rentals in anything that does not have a permanent foundation and septic system. And so that killed my tiny dream house for that particular location. I'm still hanging onto it. It will happen in the future, but just not in that county.
How to Make Cash Co-Hosting on Airbnb
Bringing us to number five, co-hosting. So what is a co-host and what do they do? A co-host is someone that helps the owner of a property manage and operate that property.
Are there people that you know that are also looking to invest in Airbnb? Are there people that you know that might have an Airbnb investment but are getting a little worn out managing it. Offer to team up to help them!
A co-host has access into the Airbnb account with the owner. So it's two people managing the listing directly, and the co-host performs all the business duties: setting pricing, setting messaging, communicating with guests, maybe even organizing cleaners.
So, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, and you're ripe with these skills that we've taught so far. They apply to a co-host as well as the owner of the Airbnb property. So, you can partner with someone who already has an Airbnb or that's thinking about making an investment but is shy about the time involved managing it.
The more Airbnb's a particular host owns, the more likely they're going to be open to co-hosting, right? Because one's pretty doable. Two are pretty doable. We manage 10, but we're "those people" and it's what we do full-time. So co-hosts, if you hear someone say, "oh, I'm looking at this third or fourth place, but I'm not sure if I can keep up with it." that's when you've got the perfect chance!
Airbnb co-hosts can make 10% to 20% of the gross of the property. So that's pretty good cash flow without having to put out any money. By applying your skills, your knowledge, and your enthusiasm to someone else's property - you can make 10% to 20% without having to put out the money and own the property.
And if you're also the hospitality mindset, if you're the outgoing personality, who loves to interact with people and the person who owns the property doesn't enjoy talking to people or maybe doesn't have the best skills of communicating with difficult guests. That's another angle that you can play to become a co-host.
How else do you find someone to co-host for? Just start asking. Just start telling people that you're interested in doing it and God has a way to help you find those people.
How to Make Money From Airbnb Rental Airbitrage
The final way to generate income from Airbnb without owning property is through rental arbitrage. Rental arbitrage is a fancy word that just basically means subleasing. So you would lease a property, it could be an apartment, it could be a townhouse, it could be a cabin, it could really be anything as creative as you want to be with it.
So, you are leasing the property under the agreement with the owner or landlord that you are allowed to sublease it and then we would sublease it out on Airbnb for short-term rental stays. You also think about this, you're kinda like a corporate housing provider, so particularly if you're in a urban environment, you would lease an apartment, furnish it and lease it out to people coming through, but it also works in a non-urban environment.
Someone could have a cabin, a family getaway place, that they're not quite ready to sell, they're not using it, but they'd like it to pay for itself. You can find people like that and offer to sublease from them and re-lease out on Airbnb. There's also a service that I came across recently called STR Locator, just getting to know those guys, but it's a service where they pre-vet properties that are amenable to subleasing.
The challenge in arbitrage is really being upfront with the owner or landlord and explaining to them and getting permission from them to sublease. There are benefits for the owner or landlord, which is, you're going to be a great tenant. I've had long-term rentals before and you don't see the place for a year and you come back and it's not in great shape. With an Airbnb property, if you're subleasing and arbitraging, you're going to make that place perfect every two to three days. So, you're going to be the best tenant that landlord's ever had, but you just need to be upfront about it.
The only other drawback here is that you would invest in furnishing and outfitting the property for short-term rentals. And then all the things that we've talked about in previous episodes about photos and good management all apply, but it's a scalable business, A lot of people who get into rental arbitrage really scale it up, and it really cash flows.
So there you have it. You now know about six different opportunities to start making money from Airbnb without owning a home. Getting started is always the hardest part. By learning what guests are actually looking for, you can use what you already have and already know to generate cash flow for financial freedom.
Take some of your profits to invest in the next higher version of what you offer, like going from a campsite to a glamping destination and then scale to the next version. Or use that money to travel, go to school, help those around you. Financial freedom is different for everyone. If you're starting your Airbnb investing journey and looking for a source of solid, actionable advice to help you succeed, that's why we created the Host Coach show.
Keep listening every Tuesday as we share the software, mindset, systems, and tools needed to maximize your cash flow and create financial freedom to do more things you love with people you love.
Remember, our joy is in your success. Should you need personal online Airbnb coaching - that is what we do! Sign up for a free 30 minute Airbnb coaching call to explore your needs and how we can help you succeed as an Airbnb investor.
