Before there was Airbnb, there was Dana McMahan. Dana McMahan was a short-term rental pioneer before Airbnb was invented.
Newlywed, her first house purchase was proximate to Churchill Downs where the Kentucky Derby runs every May in Louisville Kentucky. Renting the house out for the race weekend back in 2007 would cover her mortgage for three months.
Her first guest wrote a bad check. So when Airbnb came along to with some protections for landlords, Dana was one of the first to jump in.
Things went so well, Dana and her husband acquired a triplex in Detroit in 2014 and then a Louisville Victorian in 2016. Soon they were one of the longest tenured Airbnb super hosts.
Then Covid hit. Time to switch to traveling nurses. Then cities began to regulate short-term rentals more vigorously.
What was supposed to be easy money passive income turned into endless work. It wasn’t just the cleaning and the calendar management. There were various guest issues and the pressure of trying to maintain strong reviews. Those reviews can make or break an Airbnb business according to McMahan.
There was no turning off the phone or turning off the worry. Rain brought leaks, cold caused heating failures, heat led to a/c outages.
The money was good until increasing competition put pressure on prices. In the end, McMahan got out of the business.
It’s a look before you leap lesson. You can read more about Dana McMahan’s story here.
Good businesses can be scaled. Decker Properties manages 1700 apartments.