We have a lot of experience as both landlords and guest on AirBnB. We've had positive experiences throughout.
As hosts:
We have a standalone backyard cottage (basically a 400-sf studio apartment) in Seattle that we rent out on AirBnB. We've done so for at least 3 years. It completely pays our mortgage, which includes having refinanced to pay for part of the construction cost of the cottage. We're pretty conveniently located for people visiting the University of Washington or downtown Seattle. The "regular" rental market is very tight in Seattle these days, which also makes AirBnB attractive for people staying multiple months at a time.
* We do use their "dynamic pricing" model, which automatically modulates your pricing on a daily basis, based on supply and demand. You can set floor/ceiling parameters on this.
* My wife is our "property manager", and does a great job of responding to guest queries, cleaning the place, and otherwise taking the lead. Your responsiveness to customer questions goes into your host rating metric, which affects how high your place comes up in search rankings. We achieved "super host" status, which drives a virtuous cycle of better search rankings and more bookings.
* We have an acquaintance who can be on-call to be paid for doing the cleaning and guest prep, if we are going to be out of town or otherwise busy. We pass on the full cleaning fee to her, and don't miss it since it can enable us to make hundreds of dollars that we wouldn't otherwise be able to. (We also have two teenage boys who sometimes take on the cleaning task. This is of course also good life-skills training, but also of course, is more of a pain to supervise.)
* We've met interesting people from all over. Any problems have been only minor.
* One consistent piece of positive feedback we've received is that our photos and description accurately reflect the place. Apparently some guests have had experiences where that was not the case.
* Good photos are key! You can post a ton of photos on your listing, so I don't understand why people put up 2 or 3 out-of-focus photos of the place. Make sure your photos make the layout of the place clear. It may be helpful for one of your photos to be a floor plan.
* People don't read the description, no matter how clear you make it. Ensure that anything really important makes it into a photo (hint: you can use captions on photos to help with this).
As guests:
Anymore, whenever we travel we look to airbnb as our first resort. Its search tools are better than vrbo's, and the site seems overall easier to navigate (though that may in part be familiarity). The ability to stay in a place with a kitchen and some outdoor space is really nice, and frequently you can get some good local tips from the host. We've had success with airbnb both in the US, and in Paris and Germany.
As the "sharing economy" becomes more prominent, and there is pushback from threatened taxi drivers (uber/lyft), hotels, and local governments, one thing to look out for is the regulatory aspect. Seattle has a number of requirements for short-term rental owners (which in my opinion don't add much value for anyone, but cost us hassle and dollars), and is considering adding more. We're traveling to Hawaii over Christmas, and had a nice AirBnB rental picked out and reserved months ago, but just last week got a message that it had been canceled, because the owner hadn't been in compliance with Honolulu's short-term rental requirements, and had gotten a cease-and-desist notice from the county. So we are scrambling to find a replacement place now.
