Expats Starting an Airbnb in Costa Rica - A BAD IDEA or is it? 2024

all right guys you're thinking about living in Costa Rica and what do 95% of you guys say wa we need to make some extra money honey let's build some airbnbs that's how we're gonna live in Costa Rica make a little extra cash we're g to talk about that not really a great idea but I'm going to get into all of that a little bit more detail I've talked about this before I think that ship has sailed but you are going to do that I got some uh considerations for you we're going to get to that in a minut guys I'm Michael Al for travelcosta Rican now.com don't forget I got a travel agency that's not why you're watching this video because you're thinking about starting an Airbnb hey guess what man our reloca our next relocation Retreat sold out two months before it even starts that's how popular getting now the retreat is good but it's selling out because a lot of you are not happy where you live right now now the next dates if you go to um all the info about the relocation Retreat will be in the description of this video but briefly relocation Retreat six seven days crash course if you've never been to Costa Rica before the good the bad the be about living in Costa Rica nobody's blowing smoke nobody cares if you move to Costa Rica or not we just want to give you information in case you do want to move here I think you might want to move here uh the price of admission is worth it because you're going to meet the contacts the good contacts the people I surround myself with hey man the best I love going down to these man I love meeting you guys hanging out for a week talking in the pool walking the beach in the beautiful place great food all of it so anyway all the dates info um all of it sign up is below in the description if you have any questions feel free to email me they're selling out man I'm I I called this one I thought it was going to sell out before the end of the year but Christmas came and people you know got sidetracked but right in the first week or two of January boom sold out for March next one will probably be around June but if you're watching this video way past the time that I made it still just go to that and check the dates and they'll all be current all right the other thing is guys you know I start you know we're official podcast Now The Odd Couple Costa Rica has a we're on official platform on YouTube and we had to completely start over and now we only have like 260 subscribers I'm going to put the link down there please help a brother out man it's hard competing these days we give out some great information if Co you know you do want to hear about Costa Rico we're GNA have guests we're going to expand the podcast to to uh other topics and subjects so please help us out and subscribe even if you don't really think you're going to be watching it when it's going to be it's every Sunday so at nine o'clock in the morning Costa Rican time so I'd appreciate that subscribe all Jesus I just want to let you guys know I waited I waited two hours from birst to show up over my shoulder see I know a lot of you guys like them I love them I didn't even know how much I liked Birds till I moved to Costa Rica so maybe we'll get a few of them there I've been waiting for him I've been waiting drank a lot of coffee for this one all right I think uh like the most of the world that does airbnbs Costa Rica is the same especially my town of La Fortuna talked about this before I do think the ship has sailed if you want to start Airbnb all right it's it's oversaturated big time Big Time way too many airbnbs drove down the price drove down the price big time what used to be maybe let's say $75 a night 30 bucks now why because everyone has one everyone has one and they're all a lot of them are cheaper you know air conditioning internet bed 2530 bucks a lot of people like that they don't think they're going to be in the room that much they think they're going to going to be doing zip lines and stuff so again oversaturated drove down the cost now obviously that makes it a consumer's market and the problem with that is and the problem with cheap prices the clients the tourists the people that are booking have become little you know they're not Savvy anymore they know they got The Pick of anywhere they go probably in the world they got the pick of the litter they're can you get this a little cheaper this seems a little overpriced is it does it have two million thread count sheets I can't sleep these ones that want 225 $35 a night $45 a night these are the ones that complain the most so what's happening is the clients aren't as good either and they cause more problems I would love to hear about I don't care if you have an airbm Airbnb in Costa Rica or not I would like to hear what some of you guys that do have airbnbs what you think about what I just said are the clients getting a little bit more I think they are from what I've seen now I did I had an Airbnb I quit it I and it did good I hated it I hated waiting for people when they said they were going to be at two show up at 6 and say oh we stopped for dinner why didn't you write me ho I mean what what the hell so I got sick of it and mine was booked all the time mine was booked all the time but I I quit during the pan pandemic and about a year prior I was only renting long term all right I was only renting long term so uh watched D'Angelo my partner in crime here you know he's got three airbnbs matter of fact the one where I'm sitting right now is it is now kind of rented out like that but uh I've seen it they're they're picky they want what they want and then and they're always complaining oh you know oh the frying pan looks like you need a new frying pan I'd like can I get a free day can I get can I get a discount non-stop man nonstop I just thought it was Indians they were cheap no everybody's cheap now and you know what that was not asking Indian call them a cheap bastard and they'll be the first ones that go thank you I you're right we are I am so that wasn't that negative of a comment uh okay so now when I was making these videos before I was saying if you are going to have an Airbnb in Costa Rica it's probably going to be better if you go highend there's so many of the middle of the road cheaper options and even the cheaper options are fairly not that you know they're not that bad so I used to say if you're going to do it have a high-end one have the pool have the nicer digs the nicer you know location the jacuzzi the whole thing uh but there's a lot of those now too there's a lot of those now too so what I think what I would do I would probably instead of making airbnbs I would make them into to apartments or long-term rentals now everybody knows you probably make if your Airbnb does rent it's doing well um you make more money doing Airbnb than renting by the month or you know more of a longer term thing but remember now there's you know there's pages and pages of Airbnb so the ones that even used to do good or always were booked the competition is high now and even the ones that used to you know hey I I'm booked all the time not so much anymore so what I think I would do is yes you can combine kind of a long-term Ling with Airbnb obviously it turns into that whole scheduling thing I know you can sync them BRBO and Airbnb and all those booking.com type stuff but I think I would probably get into more of a long-term steady rental one that doesn't have so much maintenance on a daily basis of changing sheets and washing clothes and all that kind of stuff uh if you want to make some money because what's happening is for other reasons forget to tourist for a while you know people are moving here people are moving here and they're looking for apartments so it we use La for tuna so what happens here is there's so many airbnbs there's really no long-term rentals everything's an Airbnb now you know that used to be apartments or whatever um they've turned them into rentals now there are some apartments but I'm saying is uh you're more apt to be able to do the apartments now and make a little bit of extra money that way now the thing about um Apartments I'm going to give you some pointers now you can actually look at this as Airbnb or apartments I think Airbnb is dead personally but hey I know a lot of you guys hey ours is going to be better you know whatever but I would do long-term rentals but what I'm about to tell you would apply for both okay so one AC man AC's got to be everywhere you gr goes man you get hot quick you complain quick you do and you want your AC I get it I'm sitting here sweating balls right now wish I had some AC so everyone you gotta have AC in the I mean and if you can put AC all throughout wherever you're renting that's probably going to be good and remember the electricity bill is high that's what the problem is with the airbnbs and AC because a they everybody knows hey you know be really nice if you turn off the AC see you know when you leave and you know you go on your tour and you're going to be gone all day everybody says yes and nobody turns it off they run the AC they turn it on when they walk into the room and they don't turn it off till they walk out two three four whatever Days Later everyone that rents airbnbs knows that now I do know you can get those little you can you can uh little remotes that can control your AC and some people make deposits some people don't you can't turn them off there's all kinds of hacks on running your AC so they don't do that but um again AC internet and and the internet has got to be good now it can't just be have an internet everybody's working digital everybody's I'm gonna be working here too so your AC's got to be on point um two bedrooms no one bedroom okay especially if you're going to do longer term because everybody knows okay one bedroom it's even if it's one person you don't want to put all your suitcases and crap and everything you've drug on you know in the bedroom you want to use a bedroom to sleep you don't want it all junked up with a bunch of stuff so they can always use that second bedroom for you know the storage of their clo you know extra clothes or their Tech stuff or whatever they've hauled along with them you know and that's whether it's Airbnb or um longterm but longterm I I think you want to go two bedroom for sure washer dryer is huge here it's freaking huge it's right up there with AC and internet you got to washer dryer not a too washer dryer I don't know if you guys know what those are but you don't want a too washer dryer a regular Big Time stackable May tag whatever your think washer dryer is going to go a long way of to to to rentch your place because a lot of people don't have washer dryers sometimes even the longer term rental so that's going to be super super important um place to park got have a place to park the car if they're bringing a car especially longterm pull jacuzzi is always going to be a nice touch especially with Airbnb but have the jacuzzi work why why is there going to be so many jacuzzi at oh we have a Jacuzzi it's not really working right now uh and the pools go a long way here because a lot of people were looking for a pool more people are putting in pools here now it didn't used to be so much but there's a lot of people with little pools here and they're a lot cheaper than they were to put in you know you there's all kinds of uh I don't know they put those where they dig a hole and kind of put the form down there or whatever they're not all concrete it out like they used to do them so pool could pool's a good touch a balcony or a porch always good especially if you're in a nice area where you got a view of the volcano or a view of the Jungle or whatever it is someplace they can sit and work and have coffee in the morning or at night so a balcony and a Porsche is always going to be a good touch and I would even go I know I wouldn't have normally said this prior but I would say work something out with being pet friendly whether you have I don't know a little space can put the dog I don't know outside I don't even know what pet friendly means anymore but if you can be pet friendly that's just going to give you another little step up beating out competition again competition is fierce which is why I would do longer term rentals but if you do pet friendly you know a lot of a lot of us Gringos love our pets we're bringing them down here man we are bringing them down here so it's a thing so if you can make your place pet friendly or whatever uh I would probably do it these days because again um remember that attention to detail is everything because here's what's happening I don't know if you guys know the culture here and I'm not bagging on the culture I'm just telling you the way it is they do not have attention to detail almost in anything they do they're practical people that's why they the airbnbs went uh you know South is as far as $25 a night $30 a night because they were just making rooms they'd had this big they have the big uh you know in the living room they put a picture this big on the wall and then another little picture like a velvet sloth that'd be like you putting a velvet Elvis over your couch they don't know how to decorate generally not all of them so they have AC they have good internet they got a bed and you know maybe a kitchen unit nothing else just there and you know people a lot of people book those places they just again you can get those places now for like 35 bucks man because again there's a million of them so uh attention to detail is going to go a long way as far as um if you make a better Airbnb so de it you know dial it in have some Landscaping you know have some nice Landscaping where people are going to see plants they don't usually see trees they usually don't see Papaya's on the property or whatever so that kind of stuff is going to go along way so I'm going to say it for the third time I think if you're thinking about doing the Airbnb you're going to have to find why yours is different you're competing against hundreds now of people you know in any given tourist town and if you go outside of town now it's going to be a whole marketing thing because nobody really wants to be all the time you know 30 minutes outside of a town even if it's cheaper so then it's harder to Market and all that kind of stuff so you kind of got to be close you know there's a lot of that used to be a well it still is a thing people will say they're in Fortuna they are not they'll be like 20 minutes away from Fortuna but then the in the Airbnb oh we're forun and then you come here and you're not you maybe you didn't bring a car now and they didn't tell you you're not going be taxiing everywhere so again if you're gonna if you're G coming down to Costa Rica to live and you want to make some extra money I would either convert cabinas into a longer term uh rentals because again a lot of Gringo are coming here and a lot of Gringos are looking for that the money may not be as much but it's going to be consistent it's going to be consist consistent then you hook up with people like me or do you guys know Sarah on the relocation she does relocation hand hold you all that she's always looking for places because people want to find places to rent when they come live here you know so you could you could talk to um people like Sarah and go hey I got these places if you ever you know find somebody wants to be in this area where I'm at I got these you know places so I don't know I'd go the apartment route or you know something like that Airbnb is dying guys it's dying please if you have an Airbnb comment I want to hear what you have to think I'm Michael on travel Coan now.com peace guys hope it helps thinking about living or traveling anywhere always do your homework and research and if it's uh Costa Rica I'm GNA put our videos up against anybody's CIA

Channel: Travel Costa Rica NOW

Views: 5,747

Keywords: Costa Rica, living in Costa Rica, Airbnb, living abroad, living overseas, international living, Travel Costa Rica Now, travelcostaricanow, michael alan, relocation, relocation retreat, seminar, long term rental, apartment, expat, expats in Costa Rica, moving to Costa Rica, relocation tour

Id: YxIqwLzQq_Y

Length: 16min 27sec (987 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 20 2024