Making Money Without Owning a Home? You Can Still Earn from Airbnb Short-Term Rentals!

Hello, and welcome to Snowball Rentals’ WeChat account, where you can read about recent developments in the US short-term rental market.

Airbnb has long become a preferred source for people seeking authentic experiences and good-value vacations.

Recently, we have continued receiving comments and private messages from followers. Amid lively discussions with everyone, one message caught our attention:

“First, you need to have a home.”

Very realistic—and rather stark. Indeed, without even owning a home, how can you talk about earning from short-term rentals?

Yet the world is full of surprises. Today, you really can create something from nothing: not owning a home is no longer a problem!

Over the past year, Airbnb has devoted substantial resources to promoting a new program: Airbnb Friendly Apartment.

What does that mean?

Put simply, we know that traditional apartment buildings do not allow long-term tenants to secretly run short-term rentals.

But Airbnb Friendly Apartment buildings do allow it!

Airbnb says the program can let more people—long-term tenants—become hosts and experience short-term rentals while also helping address financial difficulties caused by high rent.

As a long-term tenant, nobody spends all 365 days of the year in an apartment. You may go home for Lunar New Year or Christmas, or travel for work. There will always be quite a few days when it is empty.

That is when you can rent it out on Airbnb, earning some rent to supplement the household budget!

And you can do it openly, without sneaking around.

Here is the question: why would the owners of these apartment buildings agree to let long-term tenants sublet through Airbnb?

Simply because there is a benefit.

First, owners can participate in short-term rentals and receive 20–25% of rental income. While the tenant-subletter earns money, the owner does too. It is like having someone work for them and earning extra rent without doing the work—why would they refuse?

The second and most important reason is greater appeal to long-term tenants!

We often see apartment buildings offer 6 weeks or even 2 months of free rent to attract tenants.

Now they have another approach: allowing long-term tenants to host on Airbnb. Does that not make the building even more attractive?

If you are considering renting an apartment, search for Airbnb Friendly Apartment to find nearby buildings that allow short-term rentals. If you do not know how to operate one, or if you own an apartment building and are interested in allowing short-term rentals, contact us! We can help!

Contact us right away! We will evaluate it for you free of charge.

If you:

Hope to increase rental income through short-term rentals;

Cannot spare a great deal of time to handle the small details;

Occasionally need to use the home yourself, making it unsuitable to empty out the furniture for a long-term rental;

Then:

Snowball Rentals’ management team is your best choice.

From pre-launch vacation-rental styling, big-data analysis and online marketing to tenant screening, dynamic pricing, customer service and sales, cleaning and repairs, Snowball Rentals provides everything as one complete service for your home.

This Week’s Booking Results

Through long-standing relationships with insurers, assignment companies and technology companies, Snowball Rentals rents homes for medium- and long-term durations at short-term rates, then gives owners a rebate of 5% in management fees to maximize their income.

Winter is the low season for Seattle’s short-term rental market, especially in 2023. Some recent large bookings, however, have been like a ray of sunshine, giving us high hopes for Airbnb’s performance this summer!

For the following detached home in Sammamish, Zillow shows an estimated long-term monthly rent of about US$7,760, equivalent to about US$3,880 for half a month.

However, the owner placed considerable trust in the Snowball Rentals team and entrusted us with short-term rental operations, with good results arriving repeatedly.

As shown in the booking screenshot below, the guest booked about half a month through Airbnb: 16 nights.

This booking’s rent plus cleaning fees totaled US$14,418.67!

US$3,880 👉🏻 US$14,418.67

After Airbnb’s downturn in 2023, we at Snowball Rentals hope to help owners regain ground in summer 2024!

Once again, heartfelt thanks to our homeowners for their trust and support. Whether the market is strong or weak, Snowball Rentals will stand with you and look for ways to increase your income!

Some homeowners will surely ask the hard question: was a large booking like this just a stroke of luck? What if the home does not rent? A long-term rental is more stable—even earning less is better than earning nothing!

Our answer is: the outcome depends on what we do.

Competition on Airbnb is becoming increasingly intense. The days of piecing together secondhand furniture, taking phone photos and earning easy money on Airbnb are over. Airbnb hosts have moved toward professional operations.

Careful design and furnishing before launch, followed by professional short-term rental operations, will be the only choice for a rental that continues to generate high income.

Here is another of Snowball Rentals’ core services: vacation-rental styling!

Using the vacation rental above as an example, let us see how attractive this home is!

This Week’s Short Videos

We regularly update short videos every week.

The content you need is all here.

👇🏻 Homeowners are welcome to follow us 👇🏻

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Snowball Rentals

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We also share practical vacation-rental styling plans and creative ideas to help you achieve more with less spending!

Keep rental income growing!

Xiao An’s Vacation-Rental Styling

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Referral Rewards

If you are already a Snowball Rentals homeowner, you receive a US$500 referral fee for each referral.

If you are not yet a Snowball Rentals homeowner, you receive a US$250 shopping voucher for each referral.

Snowball Rentals Management

1. Full service — We provide pre-launch rental design, furniture procurement, furnishing, professional photography, online marketing, copywriting, tenant service and sales, cleaning, supply purchasing and property repairs. You only need to be a hands-off owner; we handle the rest.

2. Multi-platform promotion — We promote the home on Airbnb, VRBO, HomeAway and other mainstream platforms for maximum exposure.

3. Dynamic pricing — Using big data, we adjust prices every day according to seasonal demand, holidays, last-minute vacancy offers, weekends and local activities, maximizing the owner’s income.

4. Income-improvement SOP — We follow 44 secrets for maximizing short-term rental income, optimizing each property’s online marketing, on-site operations and other aspects to work toward maximum income.

5. Flexible owner stays — Owners can flexibly choose when to stay themselves. This is especially suitable for owners with multiple residences around the world.

6. Terminate at any time — Management does not require an annual commitment. The owner can end the agreement with one month’s advance notice.

7. Corporate housing — In addition to nightly rentals, we work with insurers and assignment companies to provide executives with hotel-style managed accommodation for stays longer than 30 days.

8. Transparent fees — For rentals longer than 30 days, we charge 15% of accommodation revenue. For nightly rentals under 30 days, we charge 20% of accommodation revenue.