Airbnb vs a tenancy in Bristol: the real 12 month comparison
Updated: Sep 8
A three-bed house in Hotwells took £34,099 in bookings in the last twelve months on short lets. The same house on a tenancy would have paid around £24,000. Most landlords stop there, and both numbers are the wrong ones to compare.
Neither is what lands in your account. Here's what comes off each, in the order it comes off, and the number that's left.
The tenancy side, properly
A three-bed tenancy in Hotwells is around £2,000 a month. That's a market figure, not a claim about the house above. Twelve rents is £24,000, and that's the number on the listing and on the mortgage illustration.
It assumes the tenant never leaves. When they do, the property sits empty while it's cleaned, viewed and re-let, and a four week gap costs a month's rent before it costs anything else. Then the council tax and the standing charges for those weeks are yours, and the agent's tenant-find fee comes out of the first rent from the new tenant. The void guide works through why an empty month costs more than the rent.
Then the year's repairs, because a tenancy pays out on the rent and takes back on the boiler. Then, if an agent manages it, their fee comes off every month.
So the honest tenancy number is twelve rents, minus a void if there's a tenancy change, minus the re-let fee, minus repairs, minus the agent. On a £24,000 rent, one void takes the year to £22,000 before the re-let fee, the bills for the empty weeks and the repairs come off.
The short let side, properly
The Hotwells house took £34,099 in bookings. That's the gross: what the guests paid, before anything came off. Four things come off it.
Platform commission. Every booking through Airbnb, Booking.com or Vrbo pays the platform its cut before the money reaches anyone. A direct booking carries no commission at all. The share of bookings that come direct is the first thing that moves this line, and it's the one a management company controls.
Cleaning and linen. A short let is cleaned between every stay and the linen is laundered. The guest usually pays a cleaning fee towards it. A stay of a week or a month carries one clean across many nights, which is why a house that takes contractors and placements cleans cheaper per night than one that turns over every weekend.
Bills. On a tenancy the tenant pays the gas, electric, water, council tax and broadband. On a short let you do, all year, and they're a real line. The other side of that line is that a guest can't fall behind on them.
The management fee. A percentage of what the property earns, quoted once we've seen it. If the property doesn't earn, neither do we. Set-up costs, photography and any furnishing, are quoted and agreed upfront and sit outside the monthly line.
What's left after those four lines is the payout. That's the only short let number that belongs next to the tenancy number.
Where the other 25% went
The house was 75% occupied over the year. That's one night in four empty, about 91 nights across twelve months.
The tenancy's empty time arrives as one block, with a re-let fee attached and nobody paying the bills. The short let's empty time is spread through the year and priced: a Tuesday in February is cheap or empty, a Saturday in July isn't, and the calendar decides which. No void periods means no cliff in the year. It doesn't mean every night is sold.
The honest comparison
Put the two payouts side by side, not the two headline numbers. The tenancy: twelve rents, minus the void, minus the re-let fee, minus repairs, minus the agent. The short let: bookings, minus commission, minus cleaning, minus bills, minus the management fee.
On the Hotwells house the gap between the two gross figures is over £10,000. The short let's costs come out of that gap, and what's left after them is the extra income. That's where the 30 to 50% more income we quote comes from: the payout after the short let's costs, next to the rent after the tenancy's.
We'd say one thing against ourselves. A short let is more work per pound than a tenancy, and the work is what you're paying for. If a house is somewhere the weekday guest doesn't go, the extra income isn't there, and we'd tell you that on the call rather than take it on.
Getting your number
The estimate shows the short let side of this for your property: what it should book over a year, and what's paid out after every line. Put your rent next to it and the comparison is done.
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