I need someone to manage my Airbnb: what handing a Nairobi unit over involves

Almost nobody arrives at this decision because of a spreadsheet. They arrive because of a specific evening: a guest locked out at eleven, a cleaner who did not turn up between two back to back stays, a message that went unanswered for six hours and cost a five star review. The arithmetic of the management fee comes later, and by then the decision is usually already made. What follows is what actually happens after it.

Can I hire someone to manage my Airbnb?

Yes, and in Nairobi there are three arrangements to choose between. They are frequently described in the same language and they are not the same thing.

• A co-host. Your listing, your account, your reviews. Somebody else runs it and takes a percentage. This is the arrangement most owners want when they say they want someone to manage it.
• An operator who lists it themselves. The unit goes on their account. Simpler for them, and you should understand that the review history you build belongs to them rather than to you.
• Rent to rent. They lease the unit from you at a fixed monthly rent and keep whatever the short let earns above it. You get certainty and hand over the upside.

The mechanics of the first one, including how a co-host is paid and what happens when you remove them, are set out in what an Airbnb co-host does. The third is a legitimate model with a specific risk profile, covered in our piece on Nairobi arbitrage.

Can I pay someone to manage my Airbnb and still own the listing?

Yes, and you should want to. It is the single most valuable thing to insist on and it costs the operator nothing to agree to.

The reason is that a mature listing is an asset in its own right. Two years of consistent five star reviews changes your position in search results, lets you hold price against newer units in the same building, and reduces the discount you have to offer in a slow month. If that history sits on an operator account, you cannot take it with you. Which means that every year the relationship continues, your ability to renegotiate the fee gets weaker rather than stronger, because leaving costs you more than it did the year before.

An operator who insists on holding the listing is asking you to build an asset on their land. It may still be the right deal. Just price the exit before you sign, not after.

How do I find someone to manage my Airbnb in Nairobi?

There is no licensing regime that filters this market, so reputation is doing all of the work. In rough order of how reliable they have proven to be:

1. Other owners in your building. Best source by a distance. They have watched the operator work, they know whether the cleaner turns up, and they have no incentive to sell you anything.
2. Your existing cleaner or caretaker. They know who else operates in the building and, more usefully, who pays on time.
3. Management companies that advertise short let work. Including us. Judge on the answers to the questions below rather than on the pitch.
4. Airbnb own co-host directory. Real, but thin in Nairobi. Worth ten minutes, not worth waiting for.

The full set of filtering questions is in how to choose an Airbnb management company in Nairobi. If you only ask four, ask whose account the listing sits on, how many units one coordinator handles, what they can spend without asking you, and what the notice period is.

How much should I pay someone to manage my Airbnb?

Full short let management in Nairobi runs 15 to 25 percent of revenue. Our own fee is 20 percent. Below about 10 percent for genuinely full service, somebody is either not doing the work or is making the margin somewhere you cannot see, usually on cleaning charged to the guest or on a markup on every repair.

The more important question is what the percentage is charged on, which is where two identical looking quotes stop being identical. Gross booking value, revenue after platform commission, and revenue after cleaning are three different bases and the gap between them is larger than the gap between a 15 and a 20 percent headline rate. The worked arithmetic is in how much Airbnb managers charge in Kenya.

What you hand over, and what you keep

Handover goes wrong through omission rather than bad faith. This is the list we work through, and it is worth having whoever you appoint work through the same one.

• Hand over: co-host permissions on the listing, keys and access codes, the gate and building contacts, the cleaner and any existing vendor relationships, the inventory with photographs, the wifi and utility account details, and the prepaid electricity meter number.
• Keep: ownership of the Airbnb account and listing, the payout bank details, the title and insurance documents, and the building association contact in your own name.
• Agree in writing: the fee and its basis, the expense limit above which you approve, who pays for what between guests, the notice period, and what happens to bookings that straddle the end of the relationship.

The four weeks that decide it

You can tell within a month whether a handover has worked. The pattern is consistent enough to describe.

1. Week one. Access, inventory, a deep clean and an honest assessment of what the unit is missing. Expect a list of things to buy. A manager who finds nothing wrong has not looked.
2. Week two. Listing rewritten, photographs reshot if they need it, pricing reset. This is usually where the number moves, because most self managed listings are priced once and then left.
3. Week three. First guests under the new operation. Watch the response times and read the reviews as they land.
4. Week four. First statement. This is the real test. It should reconcile to the platform payout, itemise every cost, and need no explanation from you to be legible.

If the first statement is a WhatsApp message with a number in it, that is what the next twenty four will be too. Say so immediately or leave.

What goes wrong

• Occupancy projections nobody believes. Anyone quoting 85 or 90 percent has not run a Nairobi calendar through a January. Realistic figures are in our occupancy piece.
• A revenue figure with no cost stack next to it. Gross is easy to promise. Ask what reaches your account.
• Silence in the slow months. The test of a manager is February, not December.
• Nobody named. If no individual is accountable for your unit, every problem is everybody problem and therefore nobody problem.
• Expenses that appear without approval. A repair history with no receipts is not a repair history.

How this works with us

We manage short lets end to end in Westlands, Kilimani, Riverside, Kileleshwa and the surrounding areas: listing and photography, nightly pricing, guest screening and communication, changeover cleaning, maintenance between stays, and a monthly statement that reconciles. Owners abroad are paid by wire in US dollars. The listing stays in your name.

The fee is 20 percent of revenue. Expenses above USD 50 come with a receipt, anything above USD 250 is approved by you first, notice is 30 days with no exit fee, and the records come with you. If you would rather compare us against others properly, the questions to put to all of us are on our page comparing Nairobi management companies.

Related reading: running a Nairobi Airbnb from abroad and should I fire my Nairobi property manager. For where to actually look, see where to find an Airbnb co-host in Nairobi.