Hobby or business? How to professionalise your short-term rental – with Smoobu's Jannik Abraham

Jul 25
6 min read

The first episode of Built to Book, from Host Planet and Smoobu, tackles the question that quietly decides which hosts survive: are you running a hospitality business, or just renting out a property? Catch the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple.

Use code HOSTPLANET20 to get 20% off any Smoobu plan. Click here to find out more.

Professionalising a short-term rental means treating it as a business, not a hobby – which comes down to three things. First, know your real profitability by tracking five numbers (revenue, operating costs, net operating income, RevPAR, and ADR) net of all costs including mortgage and maintenance. Second, build your operation in order: stabilise, systemise, optimise, then delegate. Third, automate the transactional "hygiene" tasks so you have time for the guest experience touches that actually earn five-star reviews. The single most important first step, says Smoobu's Jannik Abraham: get your numbers and dare to look at them.

Who is Jannik Abraham?

Jannik Abraham is the Managing Director of Smoobu, the all-in-one management platform for short-term rental hosts and property managers, and specialises in helping entry-level and individual hosts think more professionally about their businesses. On the debut episode of Built to Book, he joined Host Planet's James Varley to unpack what "professionalising" actually means day to day – and why so many good-looking rentals quietly fail.

Are you running a hospitality business, or renting out a property?

Jannik's starting point is a mindset test. Renting out a property is reactive: you post some photos on a portal, hope for bookings, and see what happens. Running a hospitality business is a proactive choice – you design an experience for guests, uphold a consistent standard, manage expectations, run an operation, and understand your finances.

"You need to understand how the business works," he says, "not how the vacation rental performs – but how the business in the end works."

Why profitable-looking rentals quietly fail

Here's the trap Jannik sees repeatedly, backed by Smoobu's own data: a rental can run beautifully on occupancy and guest reviews and still lose money. The problem creeps up slowly.

Most hosts count only the "fun costs" – OTA commissions and a bit of cleaning – and forget the rest: the mortgage, the full cleaning bill, and the maintenance that has to be reinvested every year. As James adds, many hosts set their nightly rate by glancing at what competitors charge rather than calculating what it takes to actually turn a profit.

There's a hidden cost most hosts never price in at all: their own time. If your full-time job pays well per hour, grinding for an extra five pounds on a turnover may be a poor trade. Professionalisation means putting a monetary value on opportunity cost, not just cash.

The five numbers every host should track to professionalise their short-term rental business

Many smaller hosts avoid the finances because it feels like accountant territory. Jannik's fix is a minimum viable setup – five KPIs, no CFO required, roughly 20 minutes a month:

Total revenue – the money you actually made.
Total operating costs – cleaning, supplies, platform fees, maintenance (the one people forget), software – every cash outflow.
Net operating income – revenue minus costs. Did I make money, or lose it?
RevPAR (revenue per available room) – how hard your property works.
ADR (average daily rate) – including the effect of discounts and length-of-stay.

"This only takes 20 minutes max per month. Put it in a spreadsheet – three months in, you have a trend; a year in, you have a business plan you can work with."

His practical tip for smaller operators: track on a cash-flow basis over a full year (accounting for OTA payment delays), and look at profitability per property – even per night – so you can see why a weak quarter happened: pricing too low, occupancy, or too many high-turnover nights where cleaning costs ate the margin.

Don't buy software to fix a feeling

Hosts often reach for tools when they feel overwhelmed – buying something to fix a feeling rather than a defined problem. Jannik says the instinct isn't wrong (that anxiety usually signals real pain), but the execution is. Software doesn't fix feelings; it fixes specific broken or missing processes.

His diagnostic: when the feeling hits, ask "What went wrong last month, and what would I have needed in place to prevent it?" Then decide whether software is the real fix or just a plaster. "Buying software to only cure the symptoms is like taking painkillers for a broken bone – it feels better, but it doesn't set the bone." Sometimes the answer is a simple email automation, not a new platform.

Audit your objectives before you change anything

Before touching operations, Jannik says, check you have proper objectives. "I want more bookings" isn't one – you can't audit it. A real objective is specific and measurable: "75% occupancy on this property at a £195 ADR." (A useful modern trick: paste your goal into an LLM and ask it to challenge your phrasing as a business objective.)

Then audit two sides. Financial: did I make money, how much, and why? Quality: what's the gap between how good I think my property is and what the reviews actually say? The audit isn't about hunting for problems – it's about finding what isn't working and what's working so well you should double down on it.

The maturity ladder: stabilise, systemise, optimise, delegate

Crucially, Jannik argues professionalisation isn't about property count – he's seen slick two-property hosts and "wild West" 50-property operators (and someone running 80 units on a paper calendar). It's about the state of the business, which moves through four stages, in order:

Stabilise – the non-negotiable fundamentals. Channel sync so you never double-book, a unified inbox, and automated transactional messages. (He shares a host who lost bookings to cancellations simply because guests never received a booking confirmation and didn't realise they'd booked.)
Systemise – reduce the mental load: dynamic pricing instead of guessing, cleaning scheduling triggered automatically from bookings, automated basic reporting.
Optimise and delegate – now scale, which means better processes and less of your time, not just more doors: delegate to people and to tech, automate routine decisions and turnover coordination.

"Stabilise, systemise, optimise, delegate. Those things need to come in order." A direct booking website, he notes, belongs later – minimise downside risk first.

The guest experience standard every host should hit

Short-term rentals are increasingly compared to hotels – but for an individual host, "hotel standard" isn't the Four Seasons' furniture. It's the hygiene processes: instant booking, a check-in confirmation, and a property that genuinely matches its photos. Mostly, Jannik says, "you are competing against your own listing" – the expectations your photos and description set must be met.

He splits the business into two halves. The transactional part (hygiene processes) has no upside for doing it right, only downside if it breaks – so automate it. That frees time for the relationship part – the local recommendation, the note acknowledging an anniversary, the small bottle from your region – which is the fun part and the stuff that gets mentioned in reviews. Automate the downside; personalise the upside.

The one thing to change this week

Jannik's closing advice for anyone still running by the seat of their pants: get your numbers and dare to look at them. It's scary, especially if you suspect the picture isn't pretty – but you have to know.

If your numbers are already in place, audit your automated messages instead. A striking stat from Smoobu's own data: top-performing hosts automate at least 90% of their transactional messages; the average host is under 40%. As James puts it, count everything – there's always an unexpected maintenance cost every month – and get those guest messages and cleaner alerts automated. "It will change your life as a host."

FAQs

How do I know if my Airbnb is actually profitable? Calculate net operating income: total revenue minus all operating costs – including mortgage, full cleaning costs, maintenance, platform fees, and software. Occupancy and good reviews don't mean profit; only the numbers, net of every cost, tell you.

What financial metrics should short-term rental hosts track? Five basics cover it: total revenue, total operating costs, net operating income, RevPAR (revenue per available room), and ADR (average daily rate). Around 20 minutes a month in a spreadsheet builds a trend within a quarter and a business plan within a year.

In what order should I add tools and systems to my rental business? Stabilise first (channel sync, unified inbox, automated transactional messages), then systemise (dynamic pricing, automated cleaning scheduling, reporting), then optimise and delegate. A direct booking website comes later – reduce downside risk before chasing upside.

Should I buy software to solve feeling overwhelmed? Not directly. Identify the specific broken process behind the feeling first – ask what went wrong last month and what would have prevented it. Software fixes processes, not feelings; sometimes a simple automation is enough.

What's the difference between a hobby host and a professional host? A hobby is reactive – list, hope, see what happens. A professional runs it as a business: designed guest experience, consistent standards, automated operations, and a clear understanding of profitability. Property count doesn't decide it; the state of the business does.

Built to Book is powered by Smoobu – the all-in-one platform that syncs your availability, rates, and bookings in real time across Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and your own direct booking website, with a booking engine, guest communication tools, dynamic pricing, and a digital guest guide in one dashboard. Five more episodes are on the way, each going deeper into a different part of the short-term rental business. Watch or listen on the Host Planet channels.