Airbnb is hugely popular, more and more people decide to put their apartments online instead of looking for long term tenants – but experts and Airbnb users say it is very easy to fail on this market if you are not prepared enough.
Currently there are more than 8 thousand available accommodations on Airbnb. In 2014 around 150 thousand tourists visited them, but it is clear that outside Budapest it is a risky business to put your rental online: out of these more than 138 thousand rented apartments in the capital. Most of the tourist by the way arrived from the United States, Great-Britain, France, Germany and Russia.
There are of course success stories: many who got into Airbnb experienced that they can get two or three times as much revenue from it as if they rented it out for the long term. Real estate experts however say that these are the lucky ones.
Currently there are more than enough apartments on Airbnb considering Budapest: the busiest estates only see around 60% utilization. And to be this popular, the estate has to be at a good location (preferably the inner city) and it demands a great amount of work from the landlord.
Mária Éva of the Ingatlankiadás Okosan blog told Travelo that those who want to get into the business must count in a number of factors. They must know how and to whom they should pay taxes for once, but this is not all. They also have to ask the neighbors if it's not a problem for them and count in the great amount of time and actual physical work it will require to manage an Airbnb rental.
This work includes the cleaning, being flexible and building your life around the comings and goings of guests, and you also have to provide a very good service – in order to get good reviews and therefore more customers.
For those who own 30-40 rentals it's mostly a very profitable business – but if you start small and don’t plan ahead, there is a very great chance of failure.
(Source: http://travelo.hu/turista/2015/09/26/airbnb_most/)
