Anyone running an air bnb in Auckland?

**stacrafty** · 31st August 2019, 12:47 pm

Ideally central Auckland...

Just wondering what your long term occupancy rate has been like - thanks!

**nzbleach** · 31st August 2019, 1:02 pm

I know someone who sub-lets their room in eden terrace. $80 per night. Gets booked out consistently.

stacrafty · 31st August 2019, 2:07 pm

stacrafty wrote:

Ideally central Auckland...
Just wondering what your long term occupancy rate has been like - thanks!

We've got an AirBnB on the Whangaparaoa peninsular. It's pretty much booked out all year around. We normally have several long bookings during winter months which is great. Many of our long term bookings 2 weeks or longer are from Chinese visitors bring their kids for student exchange in NZ, Chinese visitors, people moving to NZ and needing a temporary accomodation till they find a more permanent place, grandparents visiting their family in nz but don't want to stay with said family. I'd say 4-5 months of our AirBnB are long stay bookings (1 week+).

AirBnB is great - you can create different rules e.g. for all year around we allow minimum of 1 night stay but if checkin is on a Friday or Saturday then, minimum 2 nights stay applies. Between June/Sep, we have a minimum of 1 week stay rule but give a bigger discount. You can create different discount rates e.g. for 1 week stay, 1 month stay... etc...

The downsides are finding a good housekeeper to do the cleaning, washing etc... and sometimes there are time wasters who ask you a whole bunch of weird questions and then ended up not booking anyway.

**stacrafty** · 1st September 2019, 9:08 am

Thanks knack. I plan to have a property manager look after it for me they take 20% which seems like a lot but then it can be a lot of work.

The key metric is occupancy which from what you've told me seems to be pretty high and then like you said the flexibility of being able to use it yourself is a huge + over having it as a rental

stacrafty · 1st September 2019, 10:31 am

stacrafty wrote:

Thanks knack. I plan to have a property manager look after it for me they take 20% which seems like a lot but then it can be a lot of work.

The key metric is occupancy which from what you've told me seems to be pretty high and then like you said the flexibility of being able to use it yourself is a huge + over having it as a rental

I would recommend it. My AirBnB (two bedrooms cottage) earns as much as my 4 bedrooms rental.

**swazi** · 1st September 2019, 12:45 pm

Even with extra council rates (is it double the regular rate?) and vacancy period factored in, plus double management fee, that sounds pretty good.

**s4turn** · 3rd September 2019, 3:32 pm

! I was just about to make a thread regarding this.

Does anyone have any cleaning services they would recommend?
we just installed schlage encode locks and a few others things for Airbnb. Havent listed the property yet

@starcrafty - 20% is a bit steep? Ive spoken to some rental managers charging 15% and im sure one of them is even less

**Hypno** · 31st October 2019, 12:31 pm

Anyone have a 101 on what i need to do or avoid regarding tax and rates for for Airbnb on a single room in a house i live in.

s4turn · 1st November 2019, 3:49 pm

s4turn wrote:

! I was just about to make a thread regarding this.

Does anyone have any cleaning services they would recommend?
we just installed schlage encode locks and a few others things for Airbnb. Havent listed the property yet

@starcrafty - 20% is a bit steep? Ive spoken to some rental managers charging 15% and im sure one of them is even less

yeah found another one that was 15%

Its all ready to go next week, just need to do a bunch of accesorizing and take some photos

**Rii** · 1st November 2019, 3:53 pm

Jesus, those are some high PM fees.

Company I work for charges between 8 - 10%. However they're not in Auckland.

Rii · 2nd November 2019, 10:02 am

Rii wrote:

Jesus, those are some high PM fees.

Company I work for charges between 8 - 10%. However they're not in Auckland.

Yes its a lot but AirBnB PM's would be doing a lot more work than you're average 3 monthly inspection type PM and 10% for those are debatable whether they are value for money. And if the returns are as good as what Knack said, then its still a good revenue stream, espc as PM fees are a deductible.

Rii · 2nd November 2019, 4:43 pm

Rii wrote:

Jesus, those are some high PM fees.

Company I work for charges between 8 - 10%. However they're not in Auckland.

Yeah my property manager fees for a normal rental are 8.5%. For an airbnb the property manager has to change all the linen etc between each guest so it's a lot more work.

But the numbers seem to stack up