Yes, there is a good example of the costs of Airbnb here:
http://affordanything.com/2014/11/04/the-airbnb-experiment-42-guests-1-police-visit-and-19000/Some places are worth more per night short-term by far and others not so much. In our case we have five Airbnb rentals operating fairly recently. Our very small one bedroom has been listed for the longest - since January 1. Prior to Airbnb we rented it out monthly for $800 a month including heat and hot water but not wifi. The net was approximately $730.
From January 1-July 31 we have made $8,622 with Airbnb. Our costs, not including time or furnishing costs, have been $1,840 for a net of $6,794 over seven months including money set aside for future repairs. We have made $957.71 net per month on Airbnb - or $227.71 more per month.
It takes me about 20 minutes per booking of my time and there have been 18 bookings so I've spent 6 hours on this. I have also cleaned twice as our cleaners were not available but have paid myself for this. That is a hassle and something it doesn't make sense for me to do as I have a higher hourly wage than a cleaner gets, but it has proven necessary at times and I have put teenagers to work helping so they have earned money too.
You might think $227.71 per month is not worth it but it is 31% more than we were receiving before and it is $265.66 per hour for my time after we pay off the furnishing and account for our time in setting it up (we have a one-year payback period on this).
We have added a cleaning fee to the listing recently and this will increase revenues by approximately $120 per month. In addition, we have had the benefit of family and friends stay in the suite and our tenants upstairs have also had family stay and an extra approx. $4100.00 per year net.
In our case the effort to fix up and furnish has paid off more for our higher value suites. We have two that are recent additions to Airbnb.
For one we have gone from $1200 a month net rent to $3100 a month net (158% more) for August with a long-term rental from September-December at $1650 net a month. We probably set the long-term rate a bit low, but that is still $450 a month (36%) more than before and we won't have to deal with the turnover. Our parents will have the place to stay in over Christmas. We should make approximately $7000 more a year with Airbnb/furnished rentals for this suite.
For the second we have gone from $1400 net a month to $2800 net a month (100% more) for August. The suite is $1700 a month net (21% more) on a long term rental from September to April. If the numbers work out for the rest of the year we should make at least $6000 more per year with Airbnb/furnished rentals for this suite.
An additional $17,100 a year is worth the extra effort for us at this point. We are in a higher tax bracket but the extra income we have made has been put into improving and furnishing the properties. Much of this is tax deductible which reduces our taxable income on the properties a lot for this year and decreased the after-tax dollars required to repair and increase the aesthetics of the properties which we were planning to do anyway.
Going forward it makes sense for us to decrease our income so we pay less tax on the net rental income. Our retirement requirements are only $3000/month so we are more than half-way there with these three rentals alone as the properties were cash flow positive to start (one marginally so).
The thing I really like about the rental property approach is that the mortgages are being paid down by other peoples money and the properties are appreciating over time while providing a place to live and income.
The thing I may get tired of with Airbnb is managing a service business. We may at some point just do long-term furnished rentals instead.