My Journey to Owning and Managing an Airbnb in Missouri

When I left Los Angeles to travel the world, my goal was to find a way to make it long-lasting. I wanted to travel, meet new people, and tell stories of travel through writing. I had been using the funds I received from the sale of my house to travel for almost 17 months, but I needed a plan. I didn’t want all of the money from the house to disappear, and I needed another investment as well as a way to earn some money. 

During my travels, I stayed in over 40 Airbnbs, and I had a good understanding of what made a great stay. Travelers have different needs than people who live in a place full-time. I loved hosting people when they visited me in California, so I decided to use that hosting skill to earn some income.

When I was in Australia in 2019, I purchased a house in St. Charles, Missouri, where I grew up. I hadn’t lived there in almost 17 years, but the homes are much cheaper there than in most areas of the U.S. When I was visiting Missouri for a month in January 2019, I looked at a couple of houses, but they weren’t the right fit. By spring, lots of houses were for sale, but I was out of the country. Buying a house in the U.S. while you’re abroad is difficult. You can read more about that process here and here. 

In July 2019, I closed on a cute house a mile from Main Street and near a college. My sister and parents looked at the house in person for me and Facetimed with me so I could see it as well. I was still in Australia and didn’t want to cut my trip short.

St. Charles is a suburb of St. Louis, so there was potential for travelers. In addition, St. Charles has a lot of history of its own – it’s Missouri’s first state capital. The Lewis and Clark Trail and the Katy Trail are nearby. Most importantly, my family lives there and could help me with it while I travel.

I was paying $240 monthly in storage fees in Los Angeles, and I figured it would be better if my furniture earned me some money. When I first arrived back in the U.S. that October, I spent three weeks in Los Angeles. I loaded my items from storage to a moving POD and had it shipped across the country. A few days after being back in Missouri, the POD arrived.

My nephews, sister, and parents arrived at my house and helped me unload the storage POD. After a few hours, boxes and furniture filled my house.

I arranged the furniture the best I could, but it was still chaotic. I didn’t stay there because it seemed overwhelming. When I left Los Angeles, I sold many items, like my kitchen table. I didn’t know where I’d end up and wanted to ensure everything fit into my storage unit. The house in St. Charles was slightly larger than mine in California, so I needed to buy more furniture.

When I sold my house in Los Angeles in June 2018, I was happy to be free of the burden of home ownership. A year of traveling made me forget about homeownership woes. I was quickly reminded, however.

The Work

I spent the next six weeks working on the house every day. I needed to use all the items I relocated there, and the new pieces needed to match. I was also on a tight budget. I spent countless hours driving around to furniture stores, Home Goods, At Home, Ikea, Lowes, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Target. When I was at my parent’s house, I was searching for items online. Sometimes, I would get items to the house and realize the color or design didn’t match, and I’d have to return it. I was constantly buying and returning items. It was exhausting. 

I ordered a lot of furniture pieces (like end tables) from Way Fair. The pieces were beautiful and pretty good quality, but I had to build all of them except for one. One thing my ex-husband was good at was building furniture. I no longer had his help, so I found a handyman on Thumbtack. He ended up helping me all day for five days.

The house was built in 1948. I had a lot of charm with archways and a wooden floor, but it needed some work. The front door was so tight that you’d have to body-check it to get it to open or close. The light fixtures were old and dim. The brass door knobs didn’t work well from the wear and tear. I bought new door knobs for each door, new lights for every room, and ceiling fans for each of the four bedrooms.

I had Scott (my handyman) prioritize the light fixtures after he built a daybed, a headboard, and an end table. I rolled up my sleeves and started to put the other furniture together. The FedEx delivery guy looked at me like I was crazy as he dropped loads and loads of large boxes on my front porch. Scott, my handyman, and I put together a cardboard table in the dining room from used boxes so that we had something to build on.

I got to know Scott as we worked at the house. He was in his late 40s and was about 5’8” tall. He was involved in a car accident in his early 20s, which gave him some brain damage. In 2015, he was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease. He occasionally had some struggles with it, and I could tell he was in pain. Scott used to work for FedEx as a driver, but he started doing handyman services over the previous few years instead. He had a child in college from his ex-wife and a five-month-old with his live-in girlfriend.

Scott and I worked into the dark until we were exhausted and couldn’t do any more work. During that week, I built a kitchen table, six chairs, a wine cart, a dresser, and a couple of end tables. When Scott needed help, I’d jump in, and we’d use some teamwork. My favorite time was when he was changing out an old, low kitchen fan to a nice light fixture. He was on a ladder and needed some help holding the light while he screwed some things in. I stretched my arms to the ceilings, got on my tippy-toes, and held the light for him. He laughed, “You can hold that without a ladder?” I explained that my height comes in handy from time to time.

If it can go wrong, it will 

While I was in Los Angeles, I hired a painter to paint the entire house, including the trim and ceilings. I received several quotes, and my sister and parents were gracious enough to meet the painter at the house. I decided on the lowest bid because I was on a budget. That was a mistake. The job took three days longer than planned; he didn’t sand the trim before painting it, got paint on the floor, and had several spots upstairs that were blotchy and showing the old color. The worst part is that he painted the windows shut. I asked him to paint the trim, but he painted the wood on the actual windows. He returned with his helper, and they fixed the upstairs patches as I walked around, showing each spot. His helper still kept missing, so I’d have to walk him over to the spots. Thankfully, he could open the windows, but not without chipping the seals.

The house had a strange smell to it, and I struggled to pinpoint where it was coming from. I asked several people for their opinion to help identify the source. I called ServePro, and a guy came out to see if it was something they could fix. I told him it was the strongest in the basement, and because the previous owners had removed the door, the basement smell was making its way through the rest of the house. Once I added the door back, it got a little better. The ServePro guy said there was nothing specific he could find and that it was likely because the house had been unoccupied for several months. The drains weren’t getting used, so he recommended putting bleach and hot water down all of the drains.

A woman lived in the house for around 50 years, and when she died, her adult son moved in for five years. Unfortunately, he smoked. The next family was a young couple with a toddler. They lived in the house for around seven years and tried to get the smoke smell out. Someone suggested I get the air ducts cleaned, so I did (cost $450). That helped a little bit, but the strange smell persisted.

I called the gas company because I felt I kept getting a waft of gas smell near the gas line in the basement. They came out right away, and sure enough, there was a small leak. They quickly repaired it, but I smelled what I thought was gas outside a month later. They came back out and told me the smell outside was the city dump in Earth City burning, and it drifts over to St. Charles from time to time. However, he found another small gas leak in the basement and repaired it. 

My neighbor, Doug, came over to assess the smell, and he thought the basement smelled like cat urine near the furnace. As soon as he said that, I knew he was right. I swept the entire unfinished basement and then used an order neutralizer with a mop over the entire floor. That helped, but I had to do it again a month later. The basement was unfinished, but the cinderblock walls were painted light green. The washer and dryer were located there, and the previous owners left a pool table down there. After trying many things, the smell started to lessen.

While in the basement, I noticed spider webs and eggs in the corners and the ceiling (wooden floorboards from upstairs). I called an exterminator and had him remove the webs and eggs and spray the chemicals. Missouri has a spider called the brown recluse, and its bite can be deadly. Thankfully, he said that the eggs weren’t those spiders.

My nephew, Anthony, pointed out that one of the windows upstairs was broken, and the glass was falling out. The previous owners had an air conditioning unit in the window, which didn’t look nice. The glass at the top was literally slipping out of the wooden frame. I called Lowe’s, and they sent a guy out to give me a quote for new windows. There were two rooms upstairs, and each had a window. I figured if I had to replace one, I should just do both. The upstairs tended to get cold in the winter and hot in the summer. I figured the old windows didn’t help with the temperature regulation. It would cost $1,000 and take four weeks to replace. 

The four-week delay was stressful because every day the house wasn’t listed for rent, cost me money. I suddenly remembered why it felt so good when I sold my house in California. It seemed that every day, there was a new expense.

Finally Ready to Host

Getting the house ready to be listed on Airbnb and VRBO was way more work and money than I imagined. By early January 2020, I listed the house on both platforms. I tried to use a management company that would do partial management of the property (called Evolve), but after three weeks of no bookings, I took it over. I hired my own photographer and created the listing that I thought was more true to the local neighborhood. Within 48 hours, I had five bookings. 

I hired a small house cleaning company (more on that in the next post), so I felt comfortable managing the house while traveling. I also installed an electronic lock on the door so I could manage it remotely. 

In February 2020, I flew to Whistler, Canada, for my birthday. This would be a good test to see how well it worked out with managing the rental while traveling for a few weeks. It worked out well and I felt confident that I could manage things remotely.

After my time in Whistler, I flew back to Missouri and prepared for my big European trip. I planned to spend around six months exploring various European countries, and I had a scheduled two-week cat and house sit in Switzerland. Unfortunately, COVID-19 hit during that time, and after ten days in Switzerland, I had to fly back to the U.S. You can read about that experience here. 

My new short-term rental suddenly received 12 cancellations due to COVID and travel restrictions. This was March 2020, and I had only a handful of guests stay. I was worried about what would come, but I felt incredibly blessed when I received a booking for 2 weeks. It was for a family who lived nearby and had mold in their house that needed to be removed. Then, a woman booked for 6 weeks because she needed to be there for work. Her company told her not to fly back for the weekends and to stay in Missouri. 

By summertime, people who were traveling didn’t want to stay in hotels due to the virus, so my house was consistently booked. I felt a huge sense of relief because I had a mortgage to pay. 

Over the last five years and hosting hundreds of guests, it’s gone really well overall. Most guests have been great. I have had some guests stain items, break things, or misbehave, but overall, it hasn’t been too bad. It can be challenging getting reimbursed when there’s damage and I often end up eating the costs.

I’ve had to replace a sewer lateral, install a French drain and sump pump, redo the bathroom, and replace things like my couch and recliners. People often ask me if having a short-term rental is profitable. It can be, but most of the money I earn goes back into maintaining or upgrading the house.

It’s still a great long-term investment, so I’m happy to have the house. I manage the house myself, which helps cut down on my costs. The house is booked consistently, which relieves some pressure.

Even though it can be a ton of work at times (especially when first setting up the rental), I am happy that I got the house when I did and no longer pay storage fees.

Two years later, I got a second house in a vacation resort community and that’s been an incredible amount of work. I’ll have a post about that down the road.

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