How To Turn Your Home Into a Passive Airbnb Income Machine and Travel Abroad

Yasi: Hey. Hello Doris. Welcome back to Fast Track Podcast.

Doris: Hello again. Again. It’s good to see you again, .

Yasi: Yeah. I want to have the second recording with you because I checked out your Instagram and to my surprise you mentioned in your previous recording you said that you have a house in Spain.

I thought it’s a family home. but when I check it, it looks like a resort. And actually you turn it into Airbnb, which I find is really amazing idea because that allows you most, your family to have more freedom to move around and also have some kind of passive income. So I want to explore this idea a little bit more with you in this session and to give my audience a little bit how to say, idea of how they can make it happen, even though it is not in Spain, it might be another country.

An idea of how to turn their home an asset into something that is working for them and helping them to achieve more freedom in life. Tell us a little bit about the house in Spain and how did you come up with this idea with your husband to build by yourself?

Doris: So we so we were living in England, in London.

We had a, bought a, a small apartment in the center of London and remade it totally, and then sold it for twice the money. So the idea came up that eventually at some point we would like to Live in Spain because my husband is from Spain. So we had been scouting properties and plots and houses for quite a few years to just get an idea of the prices and what we really want, really set down and analyze what’s our budget what do we want, how do we want an apartment, do we want the house?

And then we came to the idea to actually want to build it ourselves because we didn’t find anything that really matche. All the the requirements that we had we had traveled the world, so we were quite clear on, we’ve seen a lot of different houses. We stayed at a lot of different houses and we moved a lot of time.

So we, we got a clear idea of really what our ideal house looks like, and we hadn’t found it. So the idea came up to actually look for a plot. So we started looking for a plot of land in, in southern Spain, and finally, Found the one which was fairly expensive back then, but it was just our dream because it was on a hill overlooking the whole coast, and it was just yeah, absolutely.

Perfect in every sense. So while still living in London, we acquired that plot of land and we started going to all these grant design shows and in England and watching all these shows about self building your home to really get an understanding. We read a lot about south building your home and also, got an understanding of the local laws and what you need to do.

Started applying for all the. Documentation started looking for a, an architect. We designed it ourselves. So we are not architects. We don’t have anything to do with design, but we just have a passion to build our own place. So we designed it ourselves, but then had to obviously sign it off by a architect, which we found somebody suitable who had a similar minimalist approach that we have and.

Got this signed off and then we moved to Spain and started with the build.

Yasi: Now this is, sorry I need to ask here. So basically you guys already planned to move to Spain, so you prepare yourself by, Looking for a land and build a house there. So it’s already planned when you were still in uk.

Doris: That’s right. That’s right. We, because I’m from Italy, my husband is from Spain, we were living in England. There was always this question, where will we end up? But it made sense cost wise and also climate wise One over, over the three options. So we decided for Spain. Exactly. And we planned all before actually moving there.

And o only once everything was quite clear we moved there. Exactly.

Yasi: Okay. And how long does it take you to find this plot of land? Actually, remotely Back then, you were still living in UK, right?

Doris: We didn’t we weren’t in a hurry because we were in the middle of our careers in London, so it wasn’t very imminent.

So we had quite some time. It took us around two years. To really do the research and really find the right place. A lot of comparison, a lot of going and seeing the place, talking to people, really understanding, is this the place? What we want to live in this place? What’s the community like?

What’s the activities around would be this be a great place where our children would grow up schools the whole thing. So it was really like a proper in-depth research to, to figure out if this is the right place rather than. Just buying something off the internet and then realizing this is absolutely not what I had expected.

Yeah. So I think that’s quite crucial to really do your research properly and and get clear together with your partner about what you really want. What’s your priority? Is it the view, is it being close to the airport? Which for us was really crucial because we were still living working for our London companies.

So being 20 minutes from the airport was quite crucial because, so that we could Oh, yeah. Course travel a lot, and family and friends would easily come to visit us because if you’re in the middle of nowhere, that’s a bit harder. But it’s just a lot of different things to take into account before taking the decision.

Also going to talk to the local government to just make sure that it’s all legal because it does happen, especially in Southern Europe. It may be a scam or something. So it’s really important to just double check all the paperwork. But it’s only cause before actually signing just be on a safe site because things happen.

Yasi: And is the place where your husband is from, or actually it’s another city that you actually

Doris: it’s, it’s close by. It’s close by. . Okay. So he know the region, so he knows the region. Yes. Yes. In our case, it was a bit easier because he did know the region and he wanted. Back there

Yasi: and you both were you both discussed your, negotiated with your employers to be able to work remotely.

What if you get the land, you’re ready to build , and then you cannot work remotely? What’s the plan?

Doris: It would’ve just been to to have bought a land, we wanted to do an investment anyway, so investing in a product of land is never a bad thing. Eventually we would’ve at some point built it and then just have it as a holiday home.

That was always the plan because we always wanted to have something. As a base camp, so far it was our apartment in London, but we wanted something a bit bigger. As our family was growing. .

Yasi: Okay. Can you walk us through the building process? How long did it take? What other habits you had?

Doris: Now the interesting part is you would assume that once you decide to build your house, you just, you get in a lot of offers from different builders and from big different companies. And we did that and the cost was very high. Above our budget. So we resorted to plan B.

Set up our own building company. That’s, it’s not very common, but we set up our own building company. We bought all the materials for the building, as. Crane and everything, scaffolding everything that you need for a building. And and then we just hired individual teams or individual people to actually work on a day rate on the build.

Now I was a maternity leave, so I had a whole year of maternity leave, which I used to do all the project management, and I did the whole project management off beyond With all these people. And once the build was over, we then sold all the material secondhand again, and and closed down the building company.

And just had our house. This is very unconventional. Usually what we would do is actually, getting somebody to build it for you. But for us it was it was a fantastic experience. We learned every day and and we could modify. The build as we went along. We realized once the building the structure was done you could see actually if I have my window, And why don’t we move ahead and we’ve got the whole view.

You could just modify along the way, which you couldn’t. If you actually Okay. Tell me, I have somebody else building the house. It would cost more. Yeah. Tell

Yasi: me, tell me more about the maternity leave as a project manager during your own home. So you are a maternity leave, but your husband Yes.

Doris: Was my third child.

Yasi: Was your third child? Yes. And your husband was still working UK back. He was

Doris: already in Spain working for a London company. Oh, okay. So we were both working for a London company. Yes. . Oh, so you

Yasi: already moved to Spain

Doris: By that time, yes. So we moved to Spain. We rent a house next to the plot for one year while we built a house.

So we, we had to finish it in one year because then we wanted to move in, and then I had to go back to work. Ah, so

Yasi: That’s very,

Doris: was what I said timeframe. And we managed to build it in one year. Okay.

Yasi: First of all, to start your own building company is conventional. Second of all, you really fully utilized your maternity leave and carry your house ready.

Yeah for the family. It’s really amazing. So through, through this

Doris: it was interesting. If you imagine I had my little baby always on my side. So his playground for his whole first year was the billing side. He didn’t know anything else. This was just his life, but it was fun.

Yasi: May I ask how expensive it is to hire a building company versus you building yourself?

What would you say the cost difference. . Cause it was really, for me, it’s really surprise to

Doris: it’s, it is literally, so we literally spent half of what the the, the quotes where obviously you need to take into account my time, which is a whole year of project management.

Okay. A amounts or something, but yes, it’s literally halfway saved half of the money.

Yasi: Okay. How did you find out that the, if you start your own building company, the cost will be much lower, it will be feasible, like h how did you do that calculation? Because start the company, a lot of operational costs.

There’s some head accounts and then some overheads.

Doris: For us, it was mostly because manual labor is not very expensive in southern Spain, so that’s where they, building companies would make a huge margin. So we wanted to cut on that. So we preferred to really choose. Choose our, the type of people we wanted to work with.

Also because our build was quite unconventional in the sense that we had underfloor heating, which isn’t usual in southern Spain. So we would have to have somebody specialist anyway. We would have solar panels, we would, the build is very different from a standard build. It’s very minimally, it’s very modern.

So the usual, the standard company. Wasn’t our go-to option anyway. Plus it was twice as expensive, so it just didn’t make sense to, to do it ourselves.

Yasi: Okay. Do you mind, what is the quote of the building to build that?

Doris: So we had a quote of 600,000 euros to build. Now on top of the cost of the plot that we paid, which was 220,000 euros.

and we literally, yeah, it was wow. Half the cost for, which was, a whole villa with pool.

Yasi: And also is it on the hill, does it make it more difficult to build because

Doris: it’s not flat? It’s on a hill. It is much more expensive because the structure needs to be much more, heavier, met the steel needs to be stronger and To build.

It’s just more on commercial. The access is harder because you can’t just get there with your trucks right there. Even the windows. It was a huge operation to, to put the windows in place. We had to have a huge crane to get it there. So it was all a bit more challenging. But you’ve got the amazing view, which just makes up it.

Yasi: Yeah. Talking about that, I’m going to link your Airbnb booking in the description. So anyone who’s fancy, warm holiday in Spain, leaving amazing Villa with. Ocean view and swimming pool, check out stories we like. Okay. It was really amazing. .

Doris: It was amazing .

Yasi: So what, how, looking back, what do you, how do you describe this experience?

Would you do it again or, some people they regret, they do it themselves because so much headache. How is it for you?

Doris: It was, it’s not all Rainbows. And it was hard, especially because we had three children and the five that, was so our nights were very short and there were a lot of.

Things that didn’t go according to plan. So we had to change plan, go to plan D eventually. There’s a lot of rec tape, especially in southern Spain, so you have to deal with that. Just things getting electricity set up. It’s been a lot of going there. A lot of patient. Patient and just being.

Yeah, just taking it by the day because there’s, there are a lot of challenges unknown to somebody who is not, who isn’t. I’ve never worked in this environment. I don’t have a background in building, so it was a lot of just taking risks and going along with it and. But eventually everything worked out fine.

Right after the build. I would not have wanted to build something else. But right now we are looking into doing something similar again. We’re now looking at different plots of lands to create a different kind of experience, a cave house electric house in the desert.

It’s what we are looking at. But I’m excited again to go through this process because it is just very creative and then having at the end of, I call it my fourth baby, because it is, there’s so much sweat going into it. But then it’s the, this personal satisfaction and that you have done it.

And then when you live in it, it’s just, every corner of the house. And it is just a very gratifying experience.

Yasi: . So where are you looking? Build this cave house.

Doris: We’ve been looking at a lot of different areas and now we’re resuming in again in southern Spain because it is just an era that I’m in love with yeah.

Yasi: And also you built, you already built a house there, so you know the process and how to take regulations. Thank you. The language.

Doris: And I do know the builders and, the plumbers. And I’ve got a bit of a better knowledge now because before I was really just looking up in ads and finding people available, suitable, and you would have these interviews with these people, with, obviously not having much of a knowledge of what to ask really.

So it’s really about. Talk.

Yasi: Yeah. Talking about people do you have experience with you have a bad hire, the person actually is not qualified or doesn’t have the right attitude, then you have to get rid of this person and then find someone new, because I always find it’s, People want.

It’s one of the most challenging element when you run a project or starting your own business.

Doris: Absolutely. And it was for me, extra challenging being a woman in Southern Spain, especially in the building industry, it’s a male. Dominated environment. So as a woman, I wouldn’t be taken serious upfront.

But I’m half German, so you know, I’m very strict and I’ve got a lot of project management skills. So we got to a point where, , they really started respecting me. At the end of the day, I was the client and they realized I have very clear ideas and I know what I’m talking about. But it was initially a struggle.

It’s also interesting from a, from human point of view to really get to understand people locally, how they work, what move moves them, what motivates them, and really get them to get involved. In the build, not just as a job, but as something that they’re they’re, inspired about.

So it’s and we ended up with a very good relationship with each of them. There have been a few people that just haven’t worked out and we had to let them go and find somebody else. And that happens especially when you work with 10, 12 different parts of the time. Things do happen. . But yes, it was a, it was an inter existing experience, especially on a personal level.

Yeah.

Yasi: Yeah. I used to live in Africa and I totally understand what you mean. . . So let’s touch on a little bit technical side. , like, how do you know? When, what should be installed first and what should be installed later? Like the sequence of the building, right? Like the plumbing, the cables.

Would you totally rely on the building team? Like they just know what needs to be done, ? Yeah, of course. I know. Shaking your head. So how would you know how did you acquire that knowledge? So you can instruct. What needs to be done

Doris: now, that’s the beauty of our, the time we live in. You’ve got internet and you’ve got everything in there.

Now, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the ground design series. It’s a series in the uk and there’s a series of bill, so they follow in these in these episodes, they follow people as they build their own house. So after we’ve seen probably 20 of these, we knew. What comes next and that windows will always arrive late.

Things like that. So we would order them much earlier. I ordered them back home in my hometown in Italy, and they were shipped all the way over. So it was all, each [00:19:00] Part of the project was quite planned. I had a proper timeline and, milestones and everything worked out more than just relying.

Obviously I would ask the local experts, but I preferred having my own clear plan. .

Yasi: Yeah. And did you also work with the architect at the same time? Check back and forth with him or after he sign off, then you don’t need to involve him?

Doris: By law you have to sign it off with an architect and they need to come I think every two month to check that everything is according to plan.

Because that’s the plan. You got the plan, the building permission for. So it needs to be signed by the architect every a few months so that you, at the end of the day, you get your permit.

Yasi: , how long did you live there with your family?

Doris: Once we moved in, we,

Yasi: okay. And then after that, you moved to Ireland?

Doris: And then after that, yes, we just, we thought, or we believe that once we have our own house, that we would finally settle. Society expects okay, you to do, especially you have three children, you built your house, now you settle. But after a few years, we are just digital, no, by hard.

After three years, we just had this feeling of moving on again. And I’m sure there’s a few people in the audience who’ve. Can understand what I mean with that. And after three years, we decided to move on and we decided for Northern Ireland. And the big decision was what are we gonna do with a house?

Obviously, we put so much effort in it, so there was no, no discussion about selling it. So we definitely wanted to keep it. But it was very hours because we, we built the furniture ourselves. It was very personal. But then we decided that we would want to rent it. Short term, just so that we could use it [00:21:00] during our holidays and, we could block the time for us where we would spend time there.

The ideas was really, just to cover the mortgage costs and the, and maintenance costs. But it turned out to be an amazing passive income.

Yasi: And how many years? No, not how many years. How many. Now per year you spend there with your family.

Doris: So we usually tend to go there on our summer holidays, the kids holidays.

I would say in total about two month per year.

Yasi: Yeah. Okay. And for the rest of a 10 month and you rented out our Airbnb. Exactly.

Doris: Yeah. And we prefer short term because, so that we can always last minute, go there for a weekend or something rather than, renting it out for the whole year.

Cuz then you can actually not use it yourself. Yeah.

Yasi: And to start an Airbnb business, how was it like at the beginning? Do. [00:22:00] How did you get people know about your house? How did you get the first booking? Can you tell me a little bit about that

Doris: experience? I must admit, I’m a big fan of Airbnb because I’ve been working with them for the past seven years and.

The platform is just amazing. There’s amazing help to get you set up with everything, with pictures and everything. So it’s very smooth. It’s very easy to just get set up, even if it’s, even if you just rent out your house for let’s say two month a year, because you’re going traveling and you’re going away with work, it’s very easy and they promote it in a very, in a very seamless way.

And the more bookings you get and the more five star ratings you. The more visible you are and the more bookings you will get. So it’s really crucial that the first few bookings are you get very good reviews so that you’re billing yourself, obviously the first few bookings.

Or a bit of a challenge because it’s different if you have your own house or if you’re rent it out. So I did ask, I, I put the price lower. I just did ask my guests, if they can give me some feedback because it’s the first time I’m renting it out. What is it you missed? What you would you like to have so that I can really improve it as we go along and this is what I’m continuing doing.

I always try to get the feedback from them to further improve, the guest experience and to be able to up the.

Yasi: That’s a good idea. And did you also do any advertisement elsewhere or purely leveraging on the organic traffic from the platform?

Doris: Exactly. Yes. It’s, it was mostly on the organic traffic.

I, I set up my Instagram account and through there I did. I did get a few guests who would then book on Airbnb, but it was just, the first or a lot of recommendations within, so guests who had come would recommend us to their friends, to their families, and that would, yeah, would be speed up the increase.

As such a lot of other people, play with different platforms to use both booking and the HomeAway, different platforms. For me, it was crucial to just stay with Airbnb because they’re with Airbnb. I can decide. Who I want to, have stayed at my house. So I don’t want seven students, smashing the place because I need to, respect the neighbors as well, because it’s my house after all.

And I don’t want to affect the quiet neighborhood. So I really just choose having families with children, people who really appreciate the house, who appreciate the style, the minimalism, and who appreciate being in a quiet environment with amazing view. .

Yasi: Nice. Nice. And how long did it take you to, allow this business to take off?

Doris: It took possibly six months. After six months it did start [00:25:00] taking off. Then I obviously we had a few covid years in between where we mostly had just local people like, Spanish people. And then soon after Covid it really hectic, big time. The demand was amazingly high, so it’s been a very good investment.

Right.

Yasi: And can you say that with that decision, the one year sweat putting into building the house now it’ll, this asset can allow your family basically live in anywhere. On Earth that give you the freedom?

Doris: Absolutely. It is, in my opinion, it was worth the effort because it now allows us to have a base camp, which I think is crucial, especially as digital norms, to have one place which you can call home also for our children, this is home.

This is where we have our, all our stuff in the center and this is where we go home to and it allows us to to move where. If things don’t work out, we can always go back. We’ve got the flexibility of and the passive income to actually be able to live in our places and have this basic income that we don’t have to worry about, which covers all the costs, maintains the house so that we’ve got somebody who looks up to the pool, a gardener, so that when we actually go back, we’ve got the.

All all sets up and nicely done rather than having to go back and starting to fix a lot of things and, doing the garden and the whole thing. So it’s yeah, it’s definitely and.

Yasi: So would you mind sharing with us what would be the, let’s not say your mortgage details, just say the revenue from Airbnb from this house.

, because then, someone can think about if they have the actual cash with their investment, what kind of return they can get. .

Doris: Now obviously depends who’s on the size of the house, and they, you. The location of your house as well, if you’re close to beach, if you’re close to city, close to an airport, the size of the house and everything.

So for us, it really covers the costs, the mortgage, all the maintenance cost, electricity, all the utility bills. And on top of that, it really gives us more than enough to actually pay our rent in Switzer. .

Yasi: And before you rented out, before you did all this this decision have, did you do a calculation you think you would work out?

Doris: Not really because for us it was really just we didn’t want to have it sit there, all closed up because we know that a house, when it’s not used, it deteriorates. So it was really, for me, it was initially just important to to cover. So everything on top was really a bonus, and now it has turned into business, which I didn’t initially figure.

[00:28:00] So now that we had this experience, our next project will be actually an investment. as a business, so really we’re calculating really what all the costs, how much will it cost me to really build it, and what will I get out of it? Comparing what’s in the area, what can I charge on Airbnb, et cetera.

So it’s really, the next project will be more of a calculation. This was just, it had just happened. Okay.

Yasi: Let’s talk about the renting out your own home, because I was telling you last weekend I was at my parents in-law’s place. We talk about they want to move to Italy, actually they can rent out their house, but then there’s like a, such a mental resistance to rent out your own.

Home, which you have all your furnitures, cooking utensils, your own, I don’t know, personal items. I think if you have a house or apartment that is, you bought it for rental, it’s okay, but it’s your own home. How would you help those people to overcome their mental barrier? ,

Doris: It’s a very good question actually.

And I was struggling with it initially because, it was our home and the idea of having somebody else sleeping in your bed and using your, your bathtub and, cooking in your kitchen was quite challenging for me. Now what helped me was to actually When we moved out to actually remove all our personal stuff.

Our kit’s pictures, we would take them off and just make it a bit more neutral. And we would have a box with all our stuff, all our kitchen stuff, our really personal kitchens of, plates that our kit painted, stuff like that, that we would just put in a box and put in a seller.

So when we go there for two months in summer, we just take those boxes out, out, all their toys, which they really. , and then we’d take just these three boxes out and then it’s home again. And then when we leave, we just move these boxes back down and then we leave a neutral space where with things we don’t really, we don’t have this emotional attachment to.

So I think that’s definitely helped.

Yasi: Let’s just say I use per rule, maybe 18% of the things are general, maybe 20% of the things you own at home are a little bit more personal. You just select the ones that more personal to you. You keep it away, and then remove personal pictures. So yeah I can imagine if I, that’s okay.

Imagine you’re fine. It’s okay if I remove all the pictures and all the, small accessories away. It’ll look more neutral. and then even for the guests, they don’t feel like, oh, I’m stepping someone else home. I’m just renting a l.

Doris: Airbnb. Exactly. And then obviously, all the toys, like the baby toys and all that, we all [00:31:00] left it because our house is built for families with small children.

And our children are now, 10, 12, and 15, so they no longer use them anyway, so they have a, second use because we were very mindful about recycling upcycling which, at the house we recycled a lot and upcycled a lot. This is all used again. And it’s great for me to see that it still.

So even if it’s some personal stuff, I’m happy to let go because my children are no longer using it or our old buggy or things like that. Or all the beach toys we all leave it there for the guests to use. . Cause it’s, it just makes sense.

Yasi: Yeah. Would most of the guests families come into a place?

Doris: Yes. Because it’s the ones who enjoy it most. Because we’ve got swings, we’ve got football tables, we’ve got it’s set up for a family with children. Yeah.

Yasi: And I saw some of the custom made furnitures, like the dining table, the bunk beds. Did you design that? Did you ask the builders to build it just fit into the house, the room.

Doris: No, we designed it ourselves and and created it ourselves, together with my brother-in-law who is a carpenter. So he would, we would design it and he would just execute it. , you have

Yasi: the magic formula of everything.

looks great. So what is your plan now, like now, given that you have a home base in Spain? When you’re not using it, you already established an Airbnb business from this home. You are living Switzerland now with your family. Do you feel that literally that gives you way more freedom now whenever you want to move to the other country, you don’t have the pressure to always have an employment to, to support a family?

Doris: Yes, that’s right. So it’s, it takes off that, that pressure both from society but also within ourselves to actually. Have to have a fixed income and allows to really to move around. We do both have our jobs and and I’ve set my own business. My, my husband is in it. And so we do have reliable jobs, but it does, makes things easier.

I think it’s mostly about the anxiety and the overwhelm about not knowing what’s next. And it does give you that, that. Sense of control and, having a backup plan always, we had a situation recently where our permit here in Switzer was about to expire We ended up being able to extend it, but we had our backup plan.

What if, if war come to worse, we just moved back to Spain. So it’s helpful and I think it’s also important, especially for a lot of people who would love to move away, who would love to, to experience life abroad at some point in their life, but they feel tied down cause they have a property.

Cause they, they have the apartment, which they wouldn’t, don’t want to. It is just a, I always highly recommend doing such an experience with the opportunity to actually just rent out your place. You don’t have to sell it because it is such a difficult decision. You can just rent it out. And if for some reason you then really love it wherever you move to, you can always sell it.

But it’s a perfect solution or compromise in the meantime, which, pays off your mortgage gives you some passive income. and gives you the security there. You’ve got a base and you can always go back there. If things just don’t work out the way you expected them to work out.

Yeah.

Yasi: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And tell us, what’s the name of your villa in Spain? Where is it? ? Maybe some of the audience might want to book there this summer. Holidays there when you Yeah, so we

Doris: are. So we are in Malaga 20 minute drive from the airport on the coast. Eastwards. So it’s a small Spanish village, so it’s not very twisty.

It’s more, if you want to really immerse into local Spanish culture and it’s on a hill overlooking the coast. And in winters you can even see across, over to the Moroccan Atlas Mountains, which is just amazing and it’s. Which is car for short, for House, home, and Dario, which is our family.

Yasi: Nice. Beautiful. I’ll make sure to insert this link in the description. This year, I’m not sure where I can travel again, but if the opportunity comes, I would love to go there and visit.

Doris: Fantastic.

Yasi: Thank you so much for your, your sharing your experiences, Doris is really, gives me personally a lot of inspiration and also a lot of helpful tips for our audience.

Doris: Thank you so much. Oh, wonderful. Thanks so much. Yes. For having me.