The followup that nobody will read, probably!
We have hosted 4 sets of guests now (booked solid since mid-January) and are booked for 21 out of 28 days in February. Assuming no last-minute cancellations or crazy disasters, we'll end up making about $4500 for that ~40 day period - or quite a bit more if someone books the 3 day or 4 day gaps in February. Strategizing about pricing/minimum stays is funky!
Not bad! We'll be able to charge more as we get reviews/time on AirBnB, but this first week or so was also the Sundance film festival which boosted prices for the end of January by 50-100% across the board in town for rentals.
Overall I'd guess we'll do about this well during the ski season or a little better once we're all reviewed up, and probably a little worse in the summer. No idea if we'll get anything during the offseason/mud season, but we like to leave town then anyway.
So conservatively, I'm guessing we'll net $2k/month or so after expenses (replacing linens and other small stuff, extra utility costs, etc). Given that we spend about $4k/month overall that's a pretty nice side gig (no way do I consider it passive, though - I definitely wouldn't be comfortable renting it out when I'm not around). Given our index fund investments, I guess the apartment makes us FI sort of overnight, though I have no particular plans to quit working.
We've got our cleaning system down to the point that (with 2 adults working and 2 small children glued to the forbidden television) we can turn things over in about 45 minutes. Guests have generally not needed too much hand holding and they have all been really cool and interesting people (actor in Patty Cake$, some cinematographers, skiers from Texas, and parents of world championship ski jumping competitors from Norway... cool!)
Thanks to everyone for all the comments and feedback. Unless there are any specific questions, this will probably be my last post on the apartment. If anyone is interested in more numbers, you can resurrect this in a year!
-W