Also see: 

• I rented an Apartment to Airbnb in NYC
• Airbnb First Month By the Numbers
• How I Made an Extra $60K from Airbnb in 2015

Back in 2014, when I rented my first Airbnb apartment, I felt like I was doing something crazy. Then, in 2015, I made an extra $60,000 from Airbnb rentals – after taxes and expenses.

Mike from Upgrd playfully calls me a slumlord. My Airbnb posts tend to get a LOT of polarity in the comments; I’ve addressed my moral and ethical position in this post.

I get a lot of questions about why I do it and how it’s going. So here goes.

Why I still love Airbnb

THE PERNTS! DUH!

I dutifully pay my rents each month via Plastiq with my Citi AT&T Access More card (no longer available AFAIK).

I also pay my mortgage, my student loans, and any other bill that pops up.

Quite simply, I run ~$10,000 per month through Plastiq – and get to write off both the rents and the fees – thanks to my side hustle.

In fact, I think opening a small business or side hustle is one of the best ways to accrue extra points & miles.

As it stand, that $10K earns me an extra 30,000 Citi ThankYou points per month AKA 360,000 points per year. That’s how I’m able to fly my family to Hawaii for a vacation next month. And book cool trips to Europe.

Is my motivation purely the points? Well, no. The money is nice, too. Let’s get to that.

The situation

I must admit, things have slowed down a lot for me and Airbnb in 2016. Why? 

I axed one apartment, and have another on the chopping block next month. Both of those were/are in New York.

I will keep one apartment in New York until early 2017. And now I have 2 (soon to be 3) in Dallas. So, a lot of juggling.

In New York, the margins shrank. Rents were raised and competition increased, though occupancy stayed the same.

In Dallas, the numbers are smaller, but I have good margins: the rents are cheap, and I can charge enough to more than cover the cost. So the issue then becomes scalability – which I’m still exploring.

So far in 2016, I’ve only made a little over $11,000 up to this point in August.

This time last year, I was well over $30,000. Just to show you how much it’s slowed down.

And yes, that’s after taxes – I put 20% aside for quarterly tax payments.

Why the slowdown?

My rent in New York on my main unit increased from $2,300 per month to $2,875 a month. That’s almost an extra $7,000 a year!

On another unit (a 2BR), it went from $3,200 to $3,500. I split that one with a business partner, so my share went up $1,800 a year.

Also, the 2 Dallas locations are brand new, so they’re still in a growth phase where I’m building up reviews.

The rent increases along bring my $60,000 down to $50,00 right off the bat.

Also, I’ll miss some of Q3 and all of Q4 at the one I’m losing next month – that was an extremely lucrative time last year.

Finally, the year isn’t over. I still have 4 months coming up in Dallas – which is the high season here. So I am hoping for a big finish.

I think I can get to $25,000 this year. And maybe even $30,000.

But it’s no 2015. The margins have, it seems, halved.

Is it worth it?

Absolutely. I am mostly hands-off at this point.

I have a crew in New York looking after the places. And now I have a service here in Dallas set up. Plus, I’m around if anything happens.

All I do is accept the requests, send check-in info, and arrange the cleanings once per month. It is extremely low-pressure.

Say I get to that $30,000 mark. That’s $30,000 of low-stress side money after taxes in exchange for doing not that much work.

Plus, as mentioned, I get to sit back and collect 360,000 Citi ThankYou points a year for my efforts. That’s worth $5,760 in American Airlines flights (through July 23, 2017, with my Citi Prestige card).

I’m conservative

Just want to quickly note that in my 2015 post, I was extremely conservative in my projections. I estimated ~$31K but netted $60K.

And, I noted at the end I did not expect that level to continue.

So I guess we still have a few more months to see what shakes out. (OMG, I said I’d quickly note something and actually noted it quickly!)

Bottom line

I’m not optimistic about the future of Airbnb in New York – financially or otherwise. So much so that I am pulling out completely by early 2017.

I am optimistic for them in Dallas, though. I’m going to try to open one more and see how it goes with my new hands-off stance.

I’ve only been in the market here for 2 months, and I started in the heat of the summer (the slow season), so I don’t have a basis for future numbers at this point.

As it stands, my pure profit from Airbnb seems to’ve decreased this year. But there’s so much skewing the numbers right now I can’t say for sure how 2015 stacks up to 2016.

(But, this is the bottom line, right, so I should bottom line it.)

I’m much, much more hands-off this year than I was in 2015. And I had more units in 2015. But, an extra $30,000 for 2016 is nothing to sniff at. For the amount of work I do, which is little, I’ll take it.

Plus, I have hope for a big upswing in Dallas the next few months. There seems to be interest, so I’ll be sure to post a full 2016 update with more in-depth numbers once the dust settles. 🙂

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