- Humza Zafar is a 26-year-old Airbnb host who rents and rents 130 homes in 5 cities.
- Zafar spends about 10 hours a week managing his Airbnbs after creating a system that allows him to set up and run new listings remotely.
- He shares the 10 most crucial tools he used to automate his business, including Guesty, OpenPhone, Ring, and RemoteLock.
This narrated essay is based on a conversation with Humza Zafar, a 26-year-old Airbnb host who rents and rents 130 units in 5 cities. All income and receipts have been verified by Insider. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I started my Airbnb business almost two years ago, in November 2020. At the time, I was an engineer in Philadelphia and a traditional real estate investor on the side. I had bought a house for $175,000 and was renting it out for about $600 per room for a total of $3,600 per month.
When the pandemic hit, I had to change direction – I was looking for a more reliable secondary source of income and discovered short-term rentals and rental arbitrage through Airbnb.
I have a high risk tolerance and was making $80,000 a month after taxes, so I decided I was comfortable putting it all in. I started building my portfolio and finally quit my job as an engineer in December 2021.
Now I rent about 130 units in Detroit, Philadelphia, Dallas, Austin and Des Moines, and expect to have about 180 by the end of this year. I have 34 employees: 24 cleaners distributed in the 5 cities and 10 remote virtual assistants. Summer is my busiest season – in June I made about $434,498 in revenue, in July $476,524, and in August $383,583. (I kept 40% profit for June and July, and 31% for August.)
If I wanted to grow this business, I had to learn how to be a real CEO, not an operator.
My goal was to work in the company, not to work in the company. I didn’t want another nine-to-five job.
So, I have a system in place so that I don’t have to physically be in the city where I’m installing new units. I spend about 10 hours a week on the business itself, which frees up the rest of my time to meet with owners and negotiate deals to grow our business.
I started using the following technology once I hit my 15th property, and it helped make that income stream passive – the price per product goes down based on the volume I buy, but you can find more information on each product’s website.
Here is the exact software I used to automate my Airbnb business and how much each subscription costs me per month.
For property management: Guesty ($25 per apartment) and OpenPhone ($10 per user)
If I had to choose one software that had the most impact, it would be Guesty. It allows us to manage each property remotely – it automates all check-in and check-out messages. For example, when a customer books a property, they send an automated message thanking them for booking with us and providing arrival instructions. I would say this software takes 90% of the customer communication work away.
We also use OpenPhone, a business communication application. It’s the main point of contact for customers, so I don’t have to provide my actual phone number. We have four or five different numbers for each city, and we can assign specific virtual assistants to each line. Ten customers can call the same number. It makes communication with customers seamless, and my wife and I, as owners, can monitor what’s happening on our end.
For revenue management: PriceLabs ($20 per ad)
Determining how to price your ad is crucial. PriceLabs uses dynamic pricing to value all of my properties. The cost of staying at my Airbnbs fluctuates as the software takes into account long weekends, holidays, special events, concerts and other events happening nearby, as well as hotel rates, then sets an appropriate rate . Wheelhouse and Beyond Pricing are other solid options.
For security: Schlage (free), RemoteLock ($6 per lock) and Ring ($3 per camera)
To run this business remotely, you need to be able to have full control of the property without actually being there. Every door in my properties is equipped with Schlage smart locks. I’ve tried 10 different smart locks, and they’re hands down the best in the business for reliable operation and price.
Next, you’ll want to install Ring home security cameras at the front of each entrance. This way you and your team can see who is entering and leaving the property.
I use software called RemoteLock to integrate smart locks with Airbnb. As soon as a customer books one of our units, the software creates an automated four-digit code, and as soon as they verify, this code is automatically deleted and becomes unusable.
For protection: Minut noise detector ($9 per apartment)
We have noise detectors installed in every unit in my portfolio. Minut measures the noise in an enclosed space, and if it exceeds a certain threshold, it alerts our team.
It is important to ensure that our neighbors and other residents of the building are happy with us, while respecting the privacy of our guests. If there is a party going on we can contact them and politely ask them to keep the noise down.
For internal coordination: monday.com ($8 per user), Slack (free), and Zapier ($20 per month)
I use project management software called monday.com, which is basically the central database for our virtual assistants. It keeps track of every apartment by city, every door lock code, every phone number to contact guests and employees, specific instructions for each unit, and more. When we onboard a new virtual assistant, we don’t need to spend a lot of time training them on the ins and outs of each apartment because they have this resource.
Any questions about parking, wifi password, etc. will be here. We use it to list new properties, track maintenance requests and keep track of daily operations and schedules. In February, I was in Dubai, a different time zone, for the whole month. Every morning, I got up, checked monday.com, and looked at my team’s end-of-day reports to make sure everything was going well.
To communicate with each other internally, my team uses Slack. We’ve found it’s the best way to communicate with everyone from our virtual assistants to our cleaners to our handyman.
To integrate Slack and Airbnb, we use software called Zapier, so if a guest makes a request, it’s taken care of immediately. For example, if they send a message (via OpenPhone) saying they are missing paper towels, then Zappier will send that integration to the person in charge of ordering inventory on Slack.
To me it’s not a side hustle – it’s a multi-million dollar business
Through trial and error, I learned which software works best for managing multiple Airbnbs and how to integrate them with each other. I also researched the systems that big tech companies use to streamline their operations.
Whether your goal is to grow a million dollar business or just to have more free time, I highly recommend investing in management software. Once you can delegate these back-end administrative tasks, you’ll have an automated business — or at the very least, a passive side stream of income that works reliably on its own.
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Zafar charged $3,600 per room. He charges $600 for each bedroom in the house, for a total of $3,600 per month.
If you’re an Airbnb host and want to share your experience, email Dorothy Cucci at [email protected].
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