In the video “How Much My Airbnb Made In Year 2! (Did we finally make money?)” posted on Shelby Church’s YouTube channel, she shares the details of the earnings and expenses from her short-term rental property over the past year. Church gives viewers an inside look at the changes she made to her rental strategy and how they impacted her bottom line.
The video starts with Church giving viewers a breakdown of the earnings by month, comparing them to the previous year’s earnings, and detailing the expenses incurred. She then dives into whether or not she made a profit and if the changes she implemented were worth it. Church also shares her plans for the upcoming year and offers advice for those looking to get into the Airbnb business in 2024.
Throughout the video, Church provides insights into the challenges and successes she encountered as a short-term rental host, giving viewers a transparent look at the financial realities of running an Airbnb property. She discusses the impact of the fluctuating economy, changes in travel trends, and how she adapted her pricing and rental strategy to maximize profitability.
Overall, the video offers valuable insights for anyone considering entering the short-term rental market or looking to optimize their existing Airbnb property. Church’s candid and detailed analysis provides viewers with a realistic view of the potential ups and downs of running an Airbnb business.
Watch the video by Shelby Church
Can you guys believe it’s already been 2 years now that my house has been a short-term rental so it’s time to do my annual how much money I made or lost video if you saw last year’s video you know that we actually lost money operating our Airbnb and with the
Economy the way that it is right now I knew that it was going to be hard to change that but I did make some changes to how I run this place and now we can finally see if they made a difference so starting with the month of
January we had a booking that started mid December to mid January that we got paid for in January but after that we didn’t rent the house out at all for the rest of January to mid-February because we were using the house we were renovating the bathroom my parents were
House hunting down here and needed a place to stay and we all just wanted some time in the sun cuz we were living in Washington so of course we weren’t going to get any more January bookings and we had it blocked off for quite a bit of February as well so the one
Booking that we had we got paid out this year for it and it was $755 I didn’t want to count this in this this one because I counted it in my last year’s total but we actually did get paid for it this year and it does contribute to our ending total so I’m
Going to just share that here so then starting in mid-February we had a decent amount of bookings that’s when it starts to get to be the high season and we made $591 March was even better at $1,429 April is the best month of the year we made
$1,482 not as good as last year but still pretty good May was decent 4,600 June 3,769 July 3,000 we did get more summer bookings this year because we lowered the price a lot more so you can see this year in the summer months we doubled how much we made because we lowered the
Price and rented it out more often October was actually our weakest month of the year and then November and December were pretty good you know enough to just about cover the expenses so let’s check out how this compares to the previous year overall we had a lower nightly rate because people weren’t
Spending as much on travel we went from 700 a night to more closer to 600 a night on average so a bit lower than the previous year but the infect of inflation have been pretty bad and so people are not going to be spending as
Much on travel so the total that we made excluding that one January booking because it was kind of last year’s booking was $68,000 but including the January booking we made $75,500 a $6,000 reduction is pretty significant considering last year we didn’t even make money so this might have you
Worried but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by our expenses this year so really the main reason it was lower is because less people were spending money on travel so everybody in Palm Springs had a lower average nightly rate as a lot of you guys know I made a few major
Adjustments to how we run this place so that it could be more profitable so on average our monthly fixed expenses are around 4,8 $100 to $5,500 but we almost always had some kind of additional maintenance required which is why the monthly expense does go up from there I would say it’s closer to
5500 to 6,000 per month and here’s a look at the typical expenses our mortgage is $327 per month but there’s a lot more expenses than just that you’ve got the pest control pool cleaning water electric it really all adds up and you can see the biggest one other than the
Mortgage is the gas bill which is from the pool heat and that is why we stopped giving it away for free and instead doing our best to charge the amount it actually costs but the great thing is we actually did get reimbursed for pool heat you can see our gas bill would be
Like $1,600 but we actually got reimbursed I was so afraid that no one would want to pay $150 per day to heat the pool but let me tell you people still do it we ended up paying $7500 in gas bills last year and since
We gave away a lot of pool heat for free we ate a a lot of that cost this year we were reimbursed $527 for the pool heat fees but we did still have to pay $ 6,721 for the gas bill so we probably didn’t price it quite right but close
Enough I would say the cost of natural gas is always changing and the amount used is very dependent on the temperature outside so while you can estimate how much it’s going to cost you don’t know for sure until you get the bill the other big change was I was
Adamant about using up all of our rental contracts if you’re not familiar in Palm Springs you only get 36 rental contracts per year and last year we didn’t lower our price enough in certain times and we ended the year with like five extra rental contracts that’s really leaving
Money on the table this year I really urged our property manager like hey it’s okay to lower the price more let’s just use up the rental contracts and that really worked in our favor better to have someone staying there than no one at all this year we didn’t really have
That many maintenance expenses up until yesterday it would be you know a couple hundred a month for little fixes here and there but unfortunately yesterday I was informed that our pool heater completely broke this was a $4,500 expense for an allnew pool heater and this was very unexpected cuz our
Pool heater was only 3 years old and we actually had to pay for repairs a couple times this year right after the warranty ended a pool heater typically lasts 15 to 25 years I feel like I would not count this as expected maintenance you know you know you’re going to have to
Get your roof repaired every 10 years or whatever it is but a pool heater should last longer than this so it’s a bubber that we had to buy a new one already our total expenses ended up being $68,900 so a lot higher so then our grand total what we ended the year at
Did we lose money did we make money I’m sure you figured it out by now we actually made money this year year at the end of the year we’re going to have $6,890 in our bank account we made a profit you guys like I can’t believe it
Keep in mind it will be taxed the money that you make from a short-term rental is taxed it’s taxed by the state of California and the federal government another thing to take into consideration is that we gain Equity every year every time we made the mortgage payment this year
$989 went towards the principal payment so we’re ending the year with $ 11,8 $174 more in equity and really the biggest win with this whole thing is the home appreciation since we’ve owned the house it’s appreciated $322,000 and you guys might remember in last year’s video I predicted the home
Value to go down in 2023 because of the high interest rates but actually the home value stayed strong and it’s about the same as it was last year and with the FED now saying that rates are going to be cut in 2024 I do think it will continue to appreciate at a more
Reasonable rate so do I think my Urban BNB has been a worthwhile investment based on the last 2 years yes and this is mainly because of the home appreciation and the fact that I can use it so really if you’re only looking at cash flow you’d probably go oh this is
Not worth it at all your money would be way better off in the stock market I found that we’ve made way more from home appreciation than we’ve ever made from our monthly cash flow and I think that’s really true for a lot of short-term rental owners we only made like $6,000
In cash flow and after taxes that’ll be what like 3 or 4 ,000 and let’s be real that’s money that I’m just going to keep for unexpected maintenance in the future when you look at it from the home appreciation angle it actually has been very worth it and also from the personal
Enjoyment angle I actually used the house about 45 days this year so I got a lot of use out of it it’s the beauty of short-term rentals they’re really fun to actually use being able to use a short-term rental for your own personal enjoyment is really the thing that makes
It the most worth it your money might be better off in the stock market in a lot of situations but you can’t sleep in your stock market portfolio you can’t have friends over to it so while our short-term rental did a lot better this year than last year I
Still think it could make more money than this so I’m making a few more adjustments the first one being a new internet service I was paying $200 a month for a TV and internet bundle and I switched to T-Mobile for only $50 a month of Internet so this should save us
$1,800 a year another change I want to make this year is finding a new pool cleaner my pool cleaner currently charges us $250 a month from talking to my neighbors I know that’s above the average should be able to find a pool cleaner closer to 180 to 200 a month I
Really think I could save $50 to $70 per month on pool cleaning but the biggest change is really going to be the solar panels you can see they’re already on the roof they’re just not connected to the grid yet and in 2024 they will be connected to the grid so we’ll start to
Actually see a reduction in our crazy electric bill which is a major win I’m going to make a whole video all about the process of getting solar panels later on but I’m hoping this will SA Save Us close to $5,000 a year but we’ll see what it ends up being so I’m pretty
Happy with my Airbnb but does it make sense for you watching to get into the Airbnb game today these are my honest thoughts there’s only a few scenarios where it really makes sense I think if you’re buying a house at today’s interest rates it just doesn’t make
Sense if I had bought this house at a 6 to 8% interest rate the numbers would make no sense you guys I would be losing so much money and that is why I don’t really encourage people get into short-term rentals unless they’re buying in cash I also think just normal houses
Are not the way to go from the various extensive research and interviews I’ve done with very successful Airbnb owners you want to do a unique stay in A-frame a treehouse geodesic dome these make so much more money the return that these make is so much higher than any regular
House it is crazy they can charge a really high nightly rate for the house not costing nearly as much they think about that onera property I made a video about there were like little shipping container units getting similar rates to my three-bedroom two B house with a pool
So a shipping container treeh house those unique stays they’re way more worth it the third thing I would really urge you to consider is building a new construction I actually get a lot of hate for owning this house and turning it into an Airbnb at that time no one
Really cared no one was thinking about it but a few years later gen Z tears you will be hated if you buy a regular house and turn it into an airbn be it is not ruining the housing market by itself but it’s definitely not helping it is having
A small negative effect on people who want to become first-time home buyers let’s acknowledge that it it definitely is so if you want to do Airbnb in an ethical way the the best way to do it is buy land build something add to the housing Supply create inventory like if
You do that no one can say because you’re adding to the housing Supply technically just don’t buy like a Suburban house that’s perfect for a family and turn it into an Airbnb like don’t do it I think people are really starting to resent that I think they
Don’t want to book it they don’t want to support it so I would stay away from that so that is my 2023 Airbnb wrap how much we made my thoughts my predictions everything thank you guys so much for watching this video and following Along on my short-term rental journey I hope
That you learned something and I will see you in my next video bye
Video “How Much My Airbnb Made In Year 2! (Did we finally make money?)” was uploaded on 01/06/2024. Watch all the latest Videos by Shelby Church on Gretopia