We made the decision last month to put our place on Airbnb, something that was recommended to us by a friend at church and–it makes a lot of sense. We own a property in Zone 2 of London, it’s a place where many people around the world would like to visit (London that is, not our place), and we’d make some money on the side if we let one of those people stay where we live, it’s a win-win for all parties involved. That being said, we had a few hesitations that prevented us from jumping into it right away.

One, would someone be able to find where we live? Whenever people have visited us they often go to the wrong block since they all look similar and aren’t numbered very well. Two, would someone be happy to stay in our tiny flat? Our flat was originally a one bedroom flat that was made into a two bedroom flat by turning the kitchen into a spare room and merging it with the living room, it’s the perfect size for both of us who expect flats in London to be small, but will someone from outside of the UK’s capital feel as if they have been bamboozled? And finally, will our belongings be safe? Will someone destroy or damage something we own; soil the carpet, mark the walls or even worse, steal something. These and many other things were going through our minds.

Airbnb is a very well known reputable company, people are reviewed and rated so it’s unlikely that someone who stayed in our place would do something nefarious and if they did, then we’d cease to use that service, so that answered our third concern. As for the first and second one that would be solved by making the price lower than others around us, that way if it took them a long time to find the place and/or they weren’t happy with it, then it being cheap will hopefully help them get over that. With our concerns over, Hannah got herself a host Airbnb account, tidied up our place and put a few pictures of it on the site.

We got our first booking on the same day that we made our place official on the site which means two things. Our price was super low or that air place is really nice and everyone wants to live there, or both. We accepted the booking, took our holiday in Florence and I’m happy to say everything went well. The host found our place, loved it, and had a great time in London. I’m not sure how many more holidays we’re going to go on this year but we will definitely be making some money out of our empty place when we do, it’s such a no brainer and I highly encourage others in our position to do the same.

Ollie