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Category: Off-Topic & Lounge
By: Anika Sharma
Reply by Emily Chen:
Love the transparency. Here's mine: I run 3 properties in the Smoky Mountains (Gatlinburg area). Monthly gross averages around $12,500 — peaks at $18K in October/December but dips to like $7K in January. Expenses run about $6,200 (mortgages are $3,600 of that, cleaning about $1,400, utilities, insurance, software, maintenance reserve eat the rest). So I'm netting roughly $6,300 on average. Now hours — this is where it gets interesting. If I count every minute I "think" about the business, it feels like a lot. But my actual hands-on work? Guest messaging is handled by Hospitable (https://hospitable.com) — I just check in about an hour a week. Pricing is PriceLabs (https://pricelabs.co), maybe 30 minutes reviewing. Cleaning coordination through Turno (https://turno.com), another 30 minutes. Then maintenance issues average about 2 hours a week, bookkeeping about 2, supply ordering an hour, and driving out to inspect properties about 2 hours. So actual work: roughly 9 hours a week, call it 36 hours a month. $6,300 divided by 36 = about $175/hour. Not bad. BUT — in year 1 before I had the automation stack? I was doing 30+ hours a week and making less. My hourly rate was probably $30-40/hr. The automation is what makes the numbers work. For anyone wondering if the $200+/month in software is worth it — those tools buy me roughly 60 hours a month of labor. That's like $3/hour for automated work. Obviously worth it.
Reply by Michael Thompson:
Here's a less glamorous version: 2 properties, Airbnb arbitrage in the Atlanta suburbs. Grossing $5,800, spending $4,200 (rent is $2,800, cleaning $700, utilities/supplies/software eat the rest). Netting $1,600/month. Hours: about 20 per week because I'm still doing everything manually. So 80 hours a month. That works out to $20/hour. Yeah. Twenty dollars an hour. Below what I'd make at a regular job with benefits. I've been doing this 8 months and honestly questioning whether to keep going. I haven't quit because I think the hourly rate should improve as I systemize. I'm also learning for when I can eventually buy instead of arbitrage. And I like the flexibility. If I add a 3rd unit I think I can push net to $2,400 without proportionally more hours. But I'm not going to pretend this is some $200/hour dream right now. Some of us are grinding.
Reply by Brandon Harris:
This thread is why I love this forum. Actual real numbers instead of the highlight reel. The meta-lesson is that your hourly rate depends massively on a few variables. Automation level is the biggest — hosts without PriceLabs/Hospitable/Turno are spending 2-3x more hours on the same property. Property type matters too — cabins and unique stays in tourist areas have higher ADR and better hourly rates, while suburban apartments are a grind. Ownership vs arbitrage is huge because owners get principal paydown, appreciation, and tax benefits that don't show in cash flow numbers. And scale is everything — 1 property means low hours but high per-property overhead, while 5+ properties let you amortize systems and the marginal hour per new unit drops significantly. Rough ranges I've seen from people I know: properties 1-2, expect $30-50/hour, you're learning. Properties 3-4, expect $80-120/hour as systems kick in. Properties 5+, you should be hitting $150-250/hour if you're running things right. This is why single-property hosting can feel unrewarding — the real returns come from the system, and systems need scale to justify their cost. Check out the tools directory at https://strspecialist.com to find the right automation stack for wherever you are. Don't pay for enterprise software with 1 property, but definitely don't manually manage 5 either.