We all know that making money in the new sharing economy can be difficult and that to dabble in hosting platforms like Airbnb, you may think you need a significant investment in new items to furnish. However, I’m going to debunk this myth for you.
There are ways to get around this.
Today is your lucky day because we’re going to show you how our team did it and, more importantly, how you can do it too.
You may think this sounds complicated or expensive, but trust us when we say it’s not. We had $4’000,000 to spend on fixing up an empty apartment to rent on Airbnb, and at the end of the process, it looked like a $20’000,000 job.
We’ve made an apartment suitable for Airbnb, with only $3 million pesos.
Yes, gentlemen, it’s possible to adequate an apartment with only $3 million Colombian pesos or about $770 USD, so you can get into the Airbnb business and start earning extra money.
We did it; you can do it, and don’t worry, we will tell you how.
One time I wanted to buy a new sofa, and I remember he said, “And why don’t you buy a used one?”. And then I said, “Because I hate to sit where other people have been.” And he said: “Don’t be dramatic and think about the environment, will you?” with SERV’s deep cleaning and disinfection services, your items will be as good as new, so we had an excellent idea.
Our first decision was: to buy absolutely everything second-hand! No, we hadn’t gone crazy (I wish we had), but we had discovered the Facebook Marketplace, and it seemed like a good idea to save money.
That’s how we searched for hours for various options, and after making a good selection and having a bit of luck, we bought a sofa, a bed, a mattress, a rug, paintings (we couldn’t miss them!), a blender and a fridge. All this was a little dirty because it was used (except the bed and bath set, we are not going to go to extremes)… but what does it matter! If it comes to cleaning, we leave it in the hands of our SERV experts, who take care of everything, deep cleaning of furniture, mattress, and complete arrangement of the apartment, and leaving all items like new; their service includes everything you need to leave your Airbnb completely ready to be occupied and best of all is that their prices are accessible to your cleaning needs.
Here is the complete list of prices we got our items for:
We start with some furniture:
A sofa ($400,000) was worth ten times more, but the person who made the sale to us had a high economic capacity and decided to renovate her home.
A bed ($300,000)
A mattress ($500,000)
A rug ($100,000)
Paintings ($30,000)
Then we added some appliances:
Blender ($40,000)
Coffee maker ($50,000)
Refrigerator ($1’000,000)
Sugar/salt bowls for the kitchen table (3 for $8,000).
Finally, we bought some accessories for the bathroom:
Towels (3 for $110,000).
Soap dispenser set (2 for $8,000)
Toilet paper ($12,000)
Bed set ($66,000)
TV set ($450,000)
TV table ($180.000)
Total: $4’026.000.
As we told you before, many people are willing to renovate their interiors and can sell their second-hand items (and in excellent condition) at an attractive price, and you can not imagine the number of people who are willing to do so; we recommend that you use Facebook Marketplace because the items are usually more care and sellers are trusted people.
You must take special care in the cleanliness of your Airbnb because the main thing is to get five stars in your reviews as a host or at least four stars for your business to be profitable, but you may wonder how. Can I keep 100% of my reviews five stars? The answer is not very difficult; you have to give your guests the same service you would give to anyone who comes to your home. It’s not that complicated!
First of all, we have to have it super clean. I don’t mean the cleaning you do before your mom comes over; I mean the granny kind of cleaning. That’s the level of cleaning you have to have.
Secondly, you have to have everything neat and shiny. But seriously, you can’t imagine the number of people that are going to stay in your house and the weird things they will do there (I assure you they are not good things).
And finally, I’m not going to tell you anything you don’t know: reviews on hosting platforms are critical when choosing an accommodation. Moreover, on Airbnb, these reviews are public and are shown to everyone. Therefore, if you are starting your apartment rental business, you should pay special attention to receive exemplary ratings. That is why you should choose to hire staff to maintain cleanliness and order 100%; it is difficult to do it yourself because you must have hotel methodologies; if guests find dirt, they will make a lousy review; therefore, if you think you can not do it, then you should hire someone to do it for you. One of the most common mistakes is relying on auto-check-in, and thinking that you don’t have to clean up after every guest is very wrong. Auto-check-in allows clients to enter your home without the physical presence of a host, but that doesn’t mean that your home doesn’t need to be cleaned between bookings. Hence, it’s best to do it with a specialized company like SERV. In this case, we deep cleaned the sofa with state-of-the-art Karcher cleaners; we cleaned an impossible-to-remove stain on the mattress. However, with our state-of-the-art Karcher Puzzi Hydro Vacuum Cleaner, we could remove stubborn stains, and our cleaning staff organized and cleaned the apartment before and after the move, which saved us much time.
And finally, we took pictures of our place in the best possible light and published them. We added a brief description of our services and made sure to mention how clean we keep things. We booked the whole month instantly! It turns out you can’t just rely on Airbnb’s algorithm to sell you – you have to tell people what you have to offer and show them why they should book with you so that they feel like they’re missing out otherwise!
We know what it’s like to plan a great weekend only to have your hopes dashed by a messy Airbnb space. The last thing you should have is a chaotic place only to find out that the state of your site will put off your prospective guests.
That’s why we exist: we want to ensure that when you rent your home or apartment through Airbnb, everything is perfect for your guests, which means cleaning up after them (or even before).
We offer a service called Servnb, where we clean your spaces at $39,900* to make them spotless and ready to rent.
