AIRBNB

Airbnb was established by 3 guys from San Fransisco named Bryan Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk. It all started when these guys started to rent their extra space for travelers and provided them an air mattress to sleep on. Typical customers of Airbnb are normal house owners or investors. (Naiset puhuu rahasta yhteisö)

Airbnb is a fascinating complex and I have been very interested in the business for a while now. I remember people started to talk about it already when they started back in 2008, but for myself I did not see it relevant for me whilst travelling. I used to always prefer hotels as they felt safer in a way. I believe I used Airbnb first time around 6 years ago whilst travelling in Spain. It was okay experience and since then I have used the app especially in destinations that hotels are more expensive.

Recently I have gained interested to start hosting apartments trough Airbnb and have investigated more how the system works, what fees you must pay and is it a profitable business overall to rent your flat trough them.

For a traveller there are great benefits as:

• guarantee
• 24/7 customer service
• payment guarantee

It might be cheaper than the hotels, but there is a 14% fee that Airbnb is taking per night for the overall price, which might lift the prices up. In my opinion, the service fee is too high. We will get back to this later on.

For renter the benefits are:

• easy platform
• huge payback guarantee if something breaks
• easy income if apartment is empty occasionally
• if renting apartment irregularly as a private person, with sales under 10 000€/ year its not classified as professional business
• you have to inform the income as your personal income in tax card

There is a 3% fee for the renter as well that goes from the overall price.

All in all Airbnb is taking 17% commission for every booking that goes trough them.No wonder that example in 2017 the business made 93 million USD profit. Airbnb has over 800 million users in 220 countries. Covid harmed the business quite a lot and it has been since trying to recover. They listed in the stock market in December 2020. ( Erkkilä, 2021.)

It is important for the host to get good rates from the traveller, as that way your flat becomes more popular and you can even lift the prices higher. Hosts may also rate customers, so if you leave a mess you can rest assure that the host might rate you badly. Anyone who owns apartment or a place to crash might join Airbnb. Owning a flat in a apartment block it is recommended to get a permission from other flat owners to run the business. (Naiset puhuu rahasta yhteisö)

How much can you earn?

Simple examples:

• Owning a two bed room apartment for a price of 150€/night with

50% usage rate during a month, you would earn 2250€ gross sales. (Naiset puhuu rahasta yhteisö)

• Renting a space for 275€ a night , cleaner takes 50€/time, Airbnb takes 3% commission, there will be 14% price added to your price by Airbnb fees. In the end the price for that 1 night for consumer is 323€ per night and you would get only 216,75€.

Remember that renting your flat trough Airbnb is classified as your personal income. You must pay 30% of the income under 30 000€/year. Also be careful with the 2 year period which will break if you rent your flat for an outsider. In Finland you can sell your house/flat tax free as long as you have lived there for 2 years continuously. (Naiset puhuu rahasta yhteisö)

Remember that you may deduct all the expenses that have caused because of renting your flat for example cleaning fee, furniture, bed linen, internet and your travel expenses to the destination. If your income trough Airbnb is more than 15000€/ year, you must also pay vat 10% of your business. Most of the hosts do not cross this line. (Kirjanpitäjä, 2022.)

In Finland many apartment block households have been concerned about the increase in Airbnb rentals, as they are afraid it will have negative impact on the neighborhood. There are some cases that the house block has prohibited Airbnb in their properties but this is quite rare. As all the stock holders of the apartments have a vote and only one vote may affect the result. It is still very unclear what is considered to be professional hosting in Finland. The laws have technically left it for the cities to decide. (Hughes, 2019)

Just recently the city of Tampere encouraged the citizens to put out their flats for Airbnb as the cities capacity of providing hotel services is running out next year. Also, they have published some instructions what is legal Airbnb hosting and what is not. It seems there might be some confusion in their internal communications. Main points they have published was that regular private Airbnb hosting is okay if it is occasional and someone is living in the flat. Only 10 months ago they also published an article that it is not okay to rent out apartment block flats as they do not have two different emergency exits. (Jäärni, 2022)

As what comes to my own opinion is that I would be interested in the Airbnb host business, but I would wish more clearer instructions from the city of Tampere. What is professional business and how to make sure everything is considered as legal business. I wish Finland would jump to a more relaxed season and stop to make rules and regulations for non-needed areas. I understand the in-holiday resorts such as Mallorca, it is needed to control the Airbnb business, as there is not enough flats for the residents. But if someone wants to make small business in Finland and someone would be willing to travel here, why try to deny it? Its 2022. We have enough rules and regulations already, which makes being an entrepreneur already hard in Finland.

Next year after my apartment renovation I will try out the magical Airbnb business.

Erkkilä Jorma, 2021. Read on 23.11.2022 Link:https://www.salkunrakentaja.fi/2021/05/airbnb-kasvaa-tulos-sakkaa/

Naiset puhuu rahasta yhteisö. Read on 23.11.2022. Link: https://naisetpuhuurahasta.fi/airbnb-sijoittaminen/

Kirjanpitäjä, 2022. Read on 30.11.2022. Link: https://hullumaksaa.blogspot.com/2020/07/airbnb-vuokraaja-2020-verotus.html

Sanna Hughes, 2019. Read on 30.11.2022. Link: https://vuokranantajat.fi/lehdet/mika-ammattimaista-majoittamista/

CLARISSA JÄÄRNI, 2022. Read on 30.11.2022. Link: https://yle.fi/a/3-12275299

RIIKA RAITIO, PASI PUNKARI, 2022. Read on 30.11.2022. Link: https://yle.fi/a/74-20005255