How I turned my cottage into an Airbnb

Last year, I bought a cottage about a minute walk from Lake Erie. My plan was to enjoy the space but also see if I can make money as a short-term rental. This is where I leaned heavily on my real estate agent who owns many cottages in the Turkey Point area. Her advice was to get it ready by January as this is when people start booking and looking for their summer destinations. I was shocked because I thought I had more time to plan.

Whether you’ve stayed in an Airbnb rental for vacation or have just heard about the lucrative possibilities of owning a sought-after short-term property, owning a portfolio of vacation rentals may seem like a smart way to boost your passive income. Renting short-term properties can be a lucrative real estate investment strategy, but it also has challenges. You have to crunch the numbers to see if this is something you want to do.

Seeing that this was my first year, I wanted to see what would happen. I didn’t have a lot of expectations. So I decided to get my thrift on, because I wanted to cost-effectively purchase pieces that wouldn’t break the bank. Facebook marketplace, Ikea, Value Village, and Canadian Tire have made my cottage complete for this first season.

Here’s what I learned about investing in short-term rentals:

• Expenses will be higher
  • In the beginning, you will be investing a lot more because you will need to provide your guest with items that you wouldn’t typically provide a single tenant such as: furniture, appliances, sheets, towels, condiments, treats, wifi, supplies etc…

• Learning the platform
  • Airbnb makes it very easy to become a host. They literally give you a step-by-step guide on setting everything up. Your policy on cancellation, how much you will be charging a night, rules and regulations, etc… You are really in control of what you put on your page, which leads to my next point.
    
• Marketing
  • Because this is my first year, I really had to lean on providing imagery and text to tell my story. If you’ve ever used the platform. Airbnb uses reviews as a standard way of providing guests and hosts accurate descriptions of their experiences. Until I get enough reviews, to do the marketing for me I have to be even more clever. So I started an Instagram account to show the behind-the-scenes stuff.
    
• Income is irregular
  • Cottage season is a very short time, it’s essentially the summer. I’m lucky that my July and August are sold out but my May, June and September only have weekend bookings. I’m really depending on the short season to pay for the majority of the year. I’ll let you know where I net out this first year.
    
• It takes a lot of time
  • Because I’m doing a lot of the planning, buying, and organizing, it is taking a lot of my time. I am essentially starting a business from scratch. I’m not hiring property managers or cleaning staff to support my efforts. I’m doing it all myself (with the help of family) because I want to make sure everything is done to my level of expectations. Next year, it might be another story:)

In the end, you hear a lot about individuals starting an Airbnb. I’m one of the few to say, I’ve done it. My goal is to have this property eventually pay for itself. I’ll keep investing in upgrades, slowly increase my rates (I kinda did already) and soon enough it will be mortgage-free, and then it will be a serious cash flow property.

If you want to book my Airbnb follow the link here. If you want to see some fun pics of the place follow my Airbnb’s Instagram @inukchic_living