Hi! I’m Lindy. I do house hacking in Colorado and am an Airbnb expert who shares all my tips online… and for free!
People ask me all the time how I’ve made my Airbnb property a passive money-maker.
Aside from an occasional question from a guest, for the most part, our Airbnb is passive income. Sometimes, it feels too easy.
So, how do we accomplish this?
One of the biggest time-sucks involved in running an Airbnb is communication. And if you’re not communicating with your guest frequently, you’re setting your guests up for a poor experience. I tend to lean towards the belief that over-communicating with my guests will reduce any confusion or potential disagreements during their stay.
One of the ways that I’ve automated communication is by using the app Hospitable. Hospitable allows me to send timed canned messages to my guests when they’ve booked, when they arrive, and when they check-out. It also can pick up on messages that guests typically ask, like, “how far away from the airport are you?” or “can I get an early check-in?”.
Hospitable understands this message and fires out an automated-canned response that I’ve personally written. (Ex: I’m so sorry, we can’t accommodate early check-ins!”)
Using Hospitable has completely put my Airbnb on autopilot and changed the game.
Here are some examples of how I send out automated messages to guests using Hospitable:
- Upon booking: A message gets kicked off that says, “thank you for booking!”. It also lets them know that three days before arrival, we’ll send them check-in instructions. (So they aren’t asking for it immediately.)
- Three days before arrival: A message gets sent that reminds them of the dates they are staying, includes the address, and tells them how to access the unit. It’s very detailed and thorough. We also remind them of our noise and no-smoking rules.
- Check-in day: We remind them of how to access the unit and where to park.
- Day after check-in: We ask them if there’s anything that they need and that we hope they are enjoying their stay.
- Day before check-out: We remind them of our check-out instructions and with them safe travels.
- Day of check-out: We tell them thank you for being such a great guest and that we are leaving them a 5-star review!
While this might seem overkill, we learned early on that if we didn’t communicate frequently with our guests, there was too much ambiguity and confusion. We ended up spending way too much time messaging our guests. It also resulted in poor ratings.
We’ve received a lot of positive feedback about our communication style and how easy it was to check-in and check-out! It makes everything feel seamless. Our Airbnb feels very much like a passive income source.
I encourage you to use Hospitable. I promise the monthly fee is worth it and don’t forget…. it’s. tax write-off!
Do you have questions about house hacking in Colorado? Please feel free to book a consult with me. I’d love to schedule some time to hear about your goals and how I might be able to assist.
