How Co-Hosts Get More Homeowner Clients

Start with the buyer. A homeowner who hires a co-host is paying for three things: hours back, more income from the same house, and fewer ways for things to go wrong. Every page, letter and call in this guide ties back to one of those three.

The service list is the easy part, because Airbnb has already written it. Its Resource Center page for the Co-Host Network lists nine services a co-host can offer: listing setup, setting prices and availability, booking request management, guest messaging, onsite guest support, cleaning and maintenance, listing photography, interior design and styling, and licensing and hosting permits. Airbnb's page adds that you can describe extra services too. Pick the ones you do well and name them the same way, since owners who have browsed the Network already know those labels.

Four Kinds of Owners

Owners with one to three homes hire for different reasons. Sort every lead into one of four groups before you write a word to them, because the same pitch lands differently with each.

A list of tasks is the usual pitch, and it skips the third column. The second-home owner doesn't care which pricing software you use. They care that the house is ready when they arrive in July and that the cleaner checked under the beds. Open with the worry, answer it, and the task list becomes your proof.

Ask one question early in every conversation to find the type: "What made you look for help now?" An investor answers with a number. A tired self-manager answers with a story about a guest at midnight. A new buyer answers with a closing date. Each answer tells you which page of your material to send first.

Co-Host or Manager

The words overlap, so define yours. A co-host usually works inside the owner's own listing: the owner keeps the Airbnb account, the payout and often the permit, and you run the calendar, the messages and the turnovers. A manager usually holds the listings and the money and answers for the whole operation. Where you sit on that line changes your fee, your insurance and, in some states, whether you need a license. The licensing chapter covers that.

Say which one you are on your website and in your letter. An owner who expects a manager and gets a co-host will be surprised by the first repair bill, and an owner who wanted to keep their listing will walk away from a pitch that sounds like a takeover.

This guide is about winning owners. If your question is how many homes one person can handle and how to structure the work, read the co-hosting model for scale next.

The Co-Host Network is Airbnb's own directory of co-hosts. Airbnb describes it this way: "Anyone looking for a co-host can search the network to find and hire a high-quality, local partner." It puts you in front of owners who are already looking and costs nothing to join, so it belongs in your plan, as long as you know what it asks of you.

Everything in this chapter is as of November 2026 and comes from Airbnb's Help Center and Resource Center. Airbnb can change these requirements, so read the pages yourself before you apply.

What Airbnb Asks Before You Join

Airbnb's help article "Requirements to join and stay on the Co-Host Network" sets the bar. In its words, "You must have an active listing as a host, full-access co-host, or calendar and messaging access co-host." In the past 12 months you must have hosted 10 or more stays, or 3 or more stays totaling at least 100 nights. Your average guest rating across the listings you support must be 4.8 or higher. Your cancellation rate must be below 3%, with exceptions for valid reasons beyond your control. Your identity must be verified, your account must be in good standing, and you must meet the name and photo rules.

What Keeps You Visible

Joining is one bar and staying is another. The same article says that if your average rating falls below 4.7 you may be temporarily hidden from search results, and below 4.5 Airbnb may end its agreement with you. Airbnb also recommends a response rate above 90%, which it measures as replies within 24 hours to new requests from prospective hosts over the last 90 days. Your profile shows your individual name and a clear photo of your face. A business name is allowed only for businesses in a few places outside the U.S.

How Owners Find and Pay You There

Owners search by location. Your profile lists the services you offer and shows your guest reviews and your listings. Airbnb's article on setting up your Co-Host Network profile says you can show "a price range for full-service support if you offer it" and that hosts "can discuss the cost of any service directly with you."

On money, Airbnb stays out. Its introduction to the Co-Host Network says, "You choose what services you offer and how much you charge." The same article makes the co-host responsible for holding any permits or licenses their services require.

The fine print is in the Co-Host Network Additional Terms. They say the amount, timing and method of payment are "freely determined" between the host and the co-host, and that Airbnb "does not receive any portion of the Co-Host Services Provider Fees." Airbnb isn't a party to your agreement with the owner. Hosts are told to verify a co-host's permits, licenses and insurance. And Airbnb may end your participation with 30 days' notice, or at once for a serious breach.

Where It Runs

Airbnb's Resource Center page lists 13 places: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Spain, the UK and the U.S. That page was published on October 16, 2024 and updated on June 5, 2025.

What the Network Will Not Do

Know its three limits. It shows your personal name where you'd want your brand. It can hide you after one rough stretch of reviews. And it reaches only owners who have already decided to look for a co-host on Airbnb. An owner who asks their real estate agent, searches Google or asks an AI assistant never sees your profile. Treat the Network as one source of owners among nine, which is how the chapter on sources ranks it.

Before you take a fee for renting out someone else's house, find out whether your state calls that real estate brokerage. Some states do, some carve out short stays, and one has a license written for vacation rental managers. I'm not a lawyer or an accountant, so treat this chapter as a map of where to look, and confirm each point with your state commission and a lawyer.

What Four States Say

I opened each source below in November 2026. Words in quotation marks are the source's own.

Tennessee wrote a license for this business. Section 62-13-104(b) of the Tennessee Code defines a vacation lodging service as a person in the business of "management, marketing, booking and rental" of homes owned by others, furnished for pay to "transients or travelers staying no more than fourteen (14) days." The statute says "Each vacation lodging service shall be required to have a vacation lodging service firm license" and that it need not have a broker supervising the business. The firm "shall designate one (1) individual from that firm who shall be individually licensed as a designated agent," after an eight-hour introductory course. A licensed broker or affiliate broker doesn't need that extra license. I read the statute in FindLaw's copy, marked current as of January 2, 2024, because the Tennessee Real Estate Commission's own pages would not load for me. Confirm today's text and the application steps with the Commission.

Florida's real estate license law is Chapter 475, and its exemptions sit in section 475.011 of the 2026 Florida Statutes. Subsection (11) covers a person or company that "rents or advertises for rent, for transient occupancy, any public lodging establishment licensed under chapter 509." So the questions for a Florida co-host are whether each home holds that lodging license and whether everything you do for the owner fits inside renting and advertising it for short stays. Put both questions to the Florida Real Estate Commission and a Florida lawyer.

South Carolina licenses property managers by name. Title 40, Chapter 57 of the South Carolina Code says in section 40-57-20, "It is unlawful for an individual to act as a real estate broker, real estate associate, or real estate property manager" or to advertise or provide those services "without an active, valid license issued by the commission." The exemptions in section 40-57-240 begin with an owner renting real estate they own. In the text I read, none of them mentioned vacation or short-term rentals. The chapter is long, so ask the South Carolina Real Estate Commission how it treats a co-host.

California has no property manager license at all. An alert from the California Real Estate Commissioner, still posted on the Department of Real Estate's site, explains that a person who rents, offers to rent or collects rent for others for pay needs a real estate broker license unless an exemption applies. The exemption that matters here covers a person who "solicits or arranges, or accepts reservations or money, or both, for transient occupancies" in a single-family home, an apartment or a unit in a common interest development. The alert stresses that the stay cannot exceed 30 days and says the exemption "will be strictly enforced."

What to Take From the Four

Four states, four designs. There is no national rule, and what you do for the owner decides which rule fits. Three acts come up again and again in these four sources: advertising a home for rent, arranging or taking bookings, and handling the owner's money. Write down which of the three you do, for how many homes and for stays of what length. Then call your state's real estate commission and ask in those words. Keep the answer, the date and the name of the person who gave it.

If the answer is that you need a license, you have two clean paths. Get it, or work under someone who holds it. Either one becomes a selling point: an owner comparing two co-hosts will pick the one who can state their license position in one sentence.

Local Permits and Who Holds Them

The state license is about you. The short-term rental permit is about the house. Many cities and counties issue a permit or registration for each rental, and the local ordinance decides who must hold it, whether it passes to a new owner and whether someone local must be on call. I couldn't open a city page I'd quote here, so read the ordinance for every town you serve and write down three facts for each: who the permit names, when it renews and what gets it revoked.

Airbnb points the same way. Its Network lists licensing and hosting permits as a service a co-host can offer, and its introduction article makes the co-host responsible for the permits and licenses their own services need. An owner who hears you explain their town's permit in two sentences has a reason to trust the rest of your pitch.

Airbnb sets no price for co-hosting. Its Co-Host Network terms leave the fee to you and the owner, and Airbnb takes no share of it. That leaves you to pick a number an owner will accept and you can live on. The published figures below give you the outer walls.

Published Fees to Price Against

Read those numbers with care. Hostfully's range is one software company's estimate, from a blog post about Airbnb fees, and the post doesn't define which revenue the percentage applies to. It is a range to price inside, with no survey behind it that I could check.

Evolve's figures are what one vacation rental management company lists on its own page, where they say management fees start at 10% and "only kick in after guests check into your property." An owner who has seen that page will ask why you charge more. Have the answer ready: what you do in person, in their town, that a 10% plan leaves to them.

I looked for a published fee range for full-service local managers on a page I could open and didn't find one I'd repeat, so this guide leaves that number out. Ask two managers in your town what they charge and you'll have better data than any national average.

Decide What the Percentage Applies To

"Eighteen percent" means nothing until you say of what. There are three common bases: nightly revenue alone, nightly revenue plus the cleaning fee, or the payout that reaches the owner after the platform takes its fee. The same percentage produces three different bills.

Example: a stay brings $1,000 in nightly revenue and a $150 cleaning fee. An 18% fee on nightly revenue alone is $180. On nightly revenue plus cleaning it's $207. Neither is wrong, and the $27 gap repeats on every stay. Write the base into your agreement in words and show one worked stay, so the owner's first statement holds no surprise.

What to Include and What to Bill Separately

Owners compare totals, so sort your services into three groups and show all three.

• Inside the fee: listing upkeep, prices and calendar, guest messages, turnover scheduling and checks, restocking runs, and a monthly statement.
• Billed at cost: cleaning (often covered by the guest's cleaning fee), supplies, and repairs above an amount the owner approves in advance.
• One time: setup for a new listing, such as photos, the listing write-up and help with permit paperwork.

A lower percentage with five add-on charges looks cheap on a flyer and costs you the owner's trust in month two. One percentage and a short list of pass-through costs is easier to sell and easier to defend.

Run Your Own Numbers

The calculator multiplies your homes by the average yearly booking revenue per home and your fee, subtracts your own yearly cost per home, and divides what's left by the hours you put in.

Example: with the starting inputs, 8 homes that each book $45,000 a year at an 18% fee bring in $64,800. Your own costs of $2,400 per home come to $19,200, which leaves $45,600. At 4 hours a week per home, that's 1,664 hours a year and $27.40 an hour. Now change the fee to 15% and watch the hourly figure. Three points of fee are worth more to you than they cost any one owner.

Put the Offer on One Page

An owner should be able to read what you do and what it costs in one minute. Fill this in once, keep it current and send it before every first call.

[Your business name]: service and fee summary
For: [Owner name], [Property address]
Date: [Date]

WHAT WE DO FOR YOUR HOME
- Listing: [Write, update and keep the listing accurate on the sites you name]
- Prices and calendar: [How prices are set and how often they are reviewed]
- Guests: [Messages answered within X hours, every day, from booking to checkout]
- Turnovers: [Cleaning scheduled after every stay and checked against a photo list]
- Home care: [Restocking, small repairs, vendor visits, a walk-through every X weeks]
- Reporting: [A statement by the Xth of each month: nights, revenue, expenses, your payout]

OUR FEE
- [X]% of [nightly revenue / nightly revenue plus cleaning fee / payout received], billed [monthly]
- One-time setup: [$X, covering photos, listing and launch] or [none]

WHAT YOU PAY DIRECTLY
- Cleaning: [paid from the guest cleaning fee / billed at cost]
- Supplies and repairs: at cost, with your approval above [$X]
- Permit, taxes, insurance and utilities: [yours / who files what]

YOUR OWN STAYS
- Block your dates any time up to [X days] before arrival. No fee on owner stays. [Cleaning at cost.]

TERM
- [Month to month / X months], ending with [X days] written notice from either side.

LICENSE AND INSURANCE
- [State license type and number, or "not required for this service in (state), confirmed with (agency) on (date)"]
- [Insurance carrier and type of cover]

Questions: [Name, phone, email]

Count where your current owners came from. If the answers are a friend, a neighbor, an agent and another owner, that pattern is your plan: people who already trust you first, then people one step away, then strangers. The nine sources below are ranked that way for a business with 1 to 20 homes.

The speed column is my ranking of the nine against each other. It isn't a measured figure, and your town will reorder it. The order still holds a useful rule: spend the first month on rows one to four before you spend a dollar on rows six to nine.

Current Owners First

An owner who is happy with you knows other owners: the neighbor on the same street, a friend with a place on the same lake, a brother-in-law who bought a cabin last year. Ask once, at a good moment such as after a strong month, and make it easy by asking for one name. If you offer a thank-you, make it the same for everyone and put it in writing.

Hi [Owner first name],

[Month] was a good one for [Property name]: [one sentence of real results, such as nights booked].

I have room for [one or two] more homes this [season / year], and I'd rather work with people you know. Is there one owner near you, or a friend with a rental, who you think would want the same help?

If so, would you introduce us by text or email? I'll take it from there, and I won't pressure anyone.

Thank you,
[Your name]

Real Estate Agents

Agents who sell second homes and investment property meet your buyer in the week that buyer decides whether the house will be rented. What the agent needs from you is something that helps the sale: a rental estimate their buyer can read, and confidence that you won't embarrass them. Offer the estimate first and ask for nothing.

Before you offer an agent money for referrals, ask their managing broker whether it's allowed and how it has to be paid. State license laws differ on this, and an agent who gets it wrong risks their license. Many agents will refer you for free if your estimates help them close.

Subject: Rental numbers for your second-home buyers in [Town]

Hi [Agent first name],

I co-host [X] vacation rentals in [Town / neighborhoods] for their owners. [License line, if your state requires one.]

When one of your buyers is weighing whether a house could work as a short-term rental, I can send you a one-page estimate within [two business days]: a low, middle and high year, the source of each number, and the local permit steps. You can hand it to them under your name or mine.

I don't sell real estate and I won't. If a buyer later wants a co-host, I'd be glad to be one of the names you give them.

Could I send you a sample estimate for a listing you have now?

[Your name]
[Business name, phone, website]

Cleaners, Trades and Neighbors

Your cleaner works in other rentals. So do the handyman, the pool tech and the hot tub service. They know which owners are overwhelmed weeks before the owner admits it. Tell each of them what kind of home you take, in one sentence, and how to pass a name along. Thank them every time, whether or not the lead signs.

Neighbors are the other free source. Knock on the doors beside each home you run, give them your phone number as the person to call about noise or parking, and you've done the owner a favor and met three households who can see how well the house is kept. Some of those neighbors own rentals, or will.

Groups and Events

Local Facebook groups for hosts and for homeowners will remove you for advertising, and rightly. Answer questions instead: the permit renewal date, how the lodging tax form works, which trash day applies to which street. Put your business name in your profile and let people look you up. A free one-hour session at the library on the town's rental permit will bring out more owners than a month of posts.

The Math Behind a Year of Outreach

Example: you want 4 new homes this year. If one in four first calls ends in a signed agreement, you need 16 first calls. If one in ten owners you reach agrees to a call, that's 160 owners reached, or about 3 a week. Those two rates are made up to show the arithmetic. Count your own for a month, replace them, and you'll know how many letters, coffees and introductions your goal needs.

This ranking is for the small operator. Once you pass 20 homes and have staff, the mix shifts toward a sales process and paid search, and the owner acquisition guide for management companies is the next read.

The owner most likely to hire a co-host already rents the house and is tired of doing it alone. You can find many of them without touching a booking platform, because short-term rental permits are public records in many places.

What a Permit Register Shows

Many cities and counties that license short-term rentals publish the list. It often shows the property address, the permit number and its status, and sometimes the owner's name and mailing address. Each place decides what it shows. Cavmir™ publishes short-term rental permit reports for U.S. markets, and the Nashville permit report is one example.

Read a register for three things. Which permits are new this year, since new owners are still deciding how to run the house. Which owners live out of town, shown by a mailing address that differs from the rental's. And which owners hold more than one permit, since a second home doubles the work.

A Tennessee Example

Take a co-host with eight homes in Tennessee. The state step is the vacation lodging service firm license described in the licensing chapter, confirmed with the Tennessee Real Estate Commission. The local step is the permit list for each city or county where the homes sit. From there the order is the same as anywhere: current owners, agents who sell cabins and lake homes, cleaners, then letters to permit holders in one town at a time.

Mail First

A letter to the owner's mailing address is the safest first touch. It uses a public record, the email and phone rules below don't apply to it, and the owner can ignore it at no cost to anyone. Keep it to one page, say where you found the address, offer something useful and promise not to write again.

[Your name]
[Business name]
[Mailing address] | [Phone] | [Website]

[Date]

Dear [Owner name],

I co-host [X] vacation rentals in [Town] for their owners, including [a home on Street / in Neighborhood, named with its owner's permission]. I found your address in [City]'s public short-term rental permit list, which is why this is a letter, and why it's the only one you'll get unless you write back.

If you run [Property street name] yourself, you already know the work: messages at 11 p.m., cleaners who cancel, prices to change every week. I do that work for owners who want to keep the house and hand off the chores. You keep your listing, your reviews and your payout.

What I can send you, free and with no call required:
- A one-page estimate for your home: a low, middle and high year, with the source of every number
- My fee on one page
- Two owners you can call

[License line, if your state requires one.]

If that's useful, reply to [email], call [phone], or use the form at [website]. If not, recycle this and I won't write again.

Sincerely,
[Your name]

Never Pitch Through Airbnb or Vrbo Messages

It's tempting to message a host through their listing. Don't. Section 11.1 of Airbnb's Terms of Service, last updated February 5, 2026, says: "Do not use the Airbnb Platform, our messaging tools, or Members' personal information to send commercial messages". The same section says "You may only use another Member's personal information as necessary to facilitate a transaction using the Airbnb Platform" and bars using "bots, crawlers, scrapers, or other automated means to access or collect data". A booking inquiry that is a sales pitch breaks the first rule. Copying host names from listings into a mailing list runs into the other two.

I couldn't open Vrbo's terms while writing this guide because its site refused the request, so I won't quote them. Treat Vrbo's inbox the same way and read its terms before you send anything through it.

The same care applies to guests. A co-host never uses a guest's details from a platform booking to market anything. If you also help owners with their own booking site, that marketing is aimed at people who find the home's own website, social pages or Google listing, and the direct booking strategy guide covers how.

Calls, Texts and Email

Three federal rules cover the other channels. Here is each in one line, with the detail below.

Email first. The FTC's CAN-SPAM guide for business says the law covers "any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service" and adds, "The law makes no exception for business-to-business email." Its requirements include no false header information, no deceptive subject lines, identifying the message as an ad, telling recipients where you're located and telling them how to opt out. "You must honor a recipient's opt-out request within 10 business days," and the opt-out has to keep working for at least 30 days after you send. The guide puts the penalty at up to $53,088 for each email in violation.

Calls next. The FTC's Q&A on the Do Not Call rules says callers must sync their lists with the National Do Not Call Registry "at least every 31 days," that data for the first five area codes is free, and that violators may be fined up to $53,088 per violation. It also says, "Most phone calls to a business made with the intent to solicit sales from that business are exempt from the Do Not Call provisions." A homeowner's cell phone is a personal number even when the house is a rental, so don't assume that exemption covers you. Ask a lawyer before you call a list.

Texts last. The FCC's rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act are in 47 CFR 64.1200, which I read in Cornell Law School's copy because the FCC's own site refused my request. They require the "prior express written consent of the called party" for telemarketing calls made with an autodialer or a recorded voice to wireless numbers. They bar telephone solicitations to residential subscribers "before the hour of 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. (local time at the called party's location)." They protect numbers on the national do-not-call registry, apply to wireless numbers, and name text messages alongside calls. A text blast to a list of owner numbers is the riskiest move in this chapter.

An owner who gets your letter or hears your name from an agent will probably look you up before they call. What they find in the first minute decides whether you get that call. A co-host with no website is asking the owner to trust a phone number.

The Pages a Co-Host Site Needs

• Services and fee. What you do, what it costs and what the owner pays directly. A fee on the page filters out the wrong calls before they reach your phone.
• Homes we care for. A photo and a line about each home, shown with the owner's written permission and without the street address.
• Owner reviews. What owners say about working with you, kept apart from guest reviews of the homes.
• About. Your name, your face, your license number if your state requires one, your insurance and who answers the phone.
• Service area. One page for each town you serve, with the local permit steps.
• Revenue estimate request. A short form: address, bedrooms, whether it's rented now. State a reply time and keep it.
• Contact. Phone, email, mailing address and hours.

That's seven pages plus one per town, and a small site that answers an owner's questions beats a large one that doesn't. For the layout of each page, read the guide to vacation rental property management websites. To see what a built site includes, look at the website design page.

What to Leave Off

Four things cost you more trust than they earn. Income promises for homes you haven't run. Photos of homes whose owners haven't agreed. Stock photos presented as your work. And reviews you wrote yourself. An owner checking you out is looking for the one thing that doesn't add up.

Google Business Profile for a Service Business

Google's guidelines for representing your business allow a profile for a business with a location customers can visit, or for one that "travels to customers where they are." A co-host is the second kind. For that case the guidelines say, "If you're a service-area business, you should hide your business address from customers." Your service area "shouldn't extend farther than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based."

Three more rules from the same page matter to a small operator. A rented mailbox doesn't qualify: Google says of a virtual office that "that location isn't eligible for a Business Profile." The name on the profile has to be your real business name, because "Including unnecessary information in your business name isn't permitted," which rules out adding town names or slogans. And the profile is for your management business. Whether a single rental house can have a profile of its own is a separate question, so read the guidelines before you create one for a home.

Fill in every field: services, service area, hours, phone, website and photos of your own work. Then keep the business name, phone number and towns identical on your website, your profile and anywhere else you're listed.

Reviews From Owners

Guest reviews live on the listing and describe the house. Owner reviews describe you, and they're the ones the next owner wants. Ask every owner for a Google review of your business after their first full quarter with you.

Keep it clean. The FTC's Q&A on its consumer reviews rule, in effect since October 21, 2024, says the rule covers anyone who writes, creates or sells a fake review. It allows incentives only "as long as there isn't an express or implied requirement that the reviews have to express a particular sentiment." If a relative reviews your business, the FTC's advice is that they "clearly and conspicuously disclose their relationship to your business." The simplest policy is to pay for no reviews at all and to ask every owner, including the ones who might give four stars.

Score What an Owner Sees

Answer these twelve lines the way a skeptical owner would after ten minutes of looking you up.

Owners search with their town in the query: a co-host in their town, a vacation rental manager near them, who can manage their Airbnb in their county. One home page can't answer every town you serve. A page for each town can.

One Page for Each Town You Serve

A town page earns its place with facts that are true only of that town. Put these on it:

• The town's short-term rental permit steps in plain words, with a link to the ordinance.
• The homes you run there, shown with permission, and how long you've run them.
• One owner review from that town.
• How demand moves through the year there, in words an owner would use.
• How fast you can be at a house in that town when something breaks.
• Your fee, or a link to the fee page.

Don't copy one page and swap the town name. A copied page tells the owner nothing new, and search engines have less reason to show it. Start with the town where you run the most homes and add one page a month.

Phrases Owners Search

Owners describe their problem in plain words, so use theirs. Write each of these as a heading on the page that answers it, with your town's name in place:

• Vacation rental co-host in your town
• Vacation rental management in your town
• Short-term rental permit in your town
• How much a house can earn on Airbnb in your town
• What a co-host charges
• Co-host or property manager

The first two belong on town pages. The permit phrase deserves its own page per town, because an owner searching it is early in the decision and you want to be the one who explained it. The last two belong on your fee page.

What Gets a Small Business Named in AI Answers

Google's documentation on AI features for site owners is blunt about it: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." A page has to be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet. Google also says these features may use a "query fan-out" technique, "issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources."

In plain words, the AI breaks an owner's question into smaller ones, such as fees, licenses and who serves this town, and looks for a page that answers each. A site with a fee page, a license line and town pages has an answer for every piece. A site with one page of slogans has none.

Small operators have room here. In Cavmir's July 2026 study of 550 Google AI answers about U.S. vacation rentals, independent and regional operators received 82% of the citations, and Airbnb or Vrbo appeared in 17% of the answers. The full study explains the method.

One more data point, with a caveat. On November 12, 2026 I asked ChatGPT how an Airbnb co-host in Tennessee with eight homes could win more owners. The pages it leaned on had "co-host" or "co-hosting" in their titles. That was a single run, and answers change from one run to the next, so read it as a direction: name each page for the question the owner asks.

The same Google page lists practices that help, among them "Making sure that important content is available in textual form" and "Checking that your Merchant Center and Business Profile information is up-to-date." For a co-host that means your fee is written as text and not locked in an image or a PDF, and your business details match everywhere. The guide to generative engine optimization for vacation rentals goes further.

An owner who books a call has already read something you wrote. The call decides the rest. Leave it with three things: the reason they called, the facts you need for an estimate, and a date for the next step.

Questions for the First Call

Ask first and pitch last. The answers tell you which of the four owner types you're talking to, whether the home fits your business and what the estimate has to show. Send the one-page service and fee summary before the call, so the fee isn't the first surprise.

First call: [Owner name], [Property address], [Date]

THE OWNER
1. What made you look for help now?
2. What would a good first year look like for you, in dollars or in time back?
3. How often do you use the house yourself, and which dates matter most?
4. Who else has a say in this decision?

THE HOUSE
5. Is it rented now? On which sites, and since when?
6. Bedrooms, bathrooms, how many guests it sleeps, and anything special (hot tub, dock, view)?
7. Who holds the short-term rental permit, and when does it renew?
8. Who cleans and maintains it today, and do you want to keep them?
9. Is there an HOA, and does it limit rentals?

THE MONEY AND THE RECORD
10. Could you share the last 12 months of bookings and payouts: nights, revenue, cleaning fees?
11. What does the house cost you to run each month: utilities, supplies, insurance, repairs?
12. Who insures the house, and does the policy cover short-term rentals?
13. What is the listing's guest rating, and what do guests complain about?

NEXT STEP
14. If the estimate makes sense to you, when would you want to start?
15. Can I see the house this week?

Build the Estimate as a Range

An owner remembers the first number you say, so never say just one. Give a low, middle and high year, and write where each figure came from. Three sources cover most homes.

• The owner's own history. If the house has rented for a year, its own nights and payouts beat any market figure. Ask for them on the call.
• Airbnb's earnings estimate. Airbnb's article "How we estimate your earning potential" says it reviews "the past 12 months of booking data from similar Airbnb listings." For an area, it uses "the top 50% of similar listings in that area, based on their earnings," and it says, "We don't subtract taxes or hosting expenses." That makes it a high-end figure. Use it as the top of your range.
• A market data tool. PriceLabs says its Market Dashboards put "RevPAR, occupancy, and ADR side by side with your comp set," and it lists plans from $9.99 a month as of November 2026. Build the comparison from homes with the same bedrooms and guest count in the same area.

Example: comparable homes booked 150, 190 and 230 nights last year at about $260 a night. The low year is $39,000, the middle is $49,400 and the high is $59,800. Subtract your fee and the owner's running costs from each, so the owner sees what they keep. Write "Estimate" at the top of the sheet, date it, name the source under each figure, and add one line saying that results at other homes don't promise results at this one.

What the Agreement Should Cover

Airbnb's guide for co-hosts, "Establish your partnership", lists what to settle before you start: what the host needs and how you can help, "How much you charge and how you want to be paid," "What the host expects to earn," how you'll communicate, who answers booking requests and guest messages, who manages cleaners and maintenance workers, who submits reimbursement requests and who contacts Airbnb Support. It suggests putting the details in "a formal agreement." It also says "Host damage protection isn't an insurance policy," which is why your damage clause should name the owner's insurer.

Payment has its own page. Airbnb's "How co-host payouts work" lets the owner share a cleaning fee, a cleaning fee plus a percentage, a percentage, or a fixed amount per booking, and the co-host has 14 days to confirm the proposal. It covers guest stays only. Service and Experience bookings, host damage protection reimbursements and Resolution Center payouts aren't split. The owner's tax document shows the full booking amount and yours shows what you were paid, so tell the owner's accountant how you're paid, and check that the split matches the fee base in your agreement.

Co-hosting agreement: points to settle
For review by a lawyer licensed in [State]

1. Parties and home: the owner's legal name, your business's legal name, the property address.
2. Services: what you do, matching the one-page summary, and what you don't do.
3. Fee: [X]% of [base], paid by [Airbnb payout split / invoice], on [date each month].
4. Who pays what: cleaning, supplies, repairs, utilities, permit, lodging taxes, platform fees.
5. Spending limit: repairs you may approve without asking, up to [$X].
6. Damage: who files claims with the platform, who deals with the owner's insurer, and the deadlines.
7. Owner stays: how the owner blocks dates, the notice needed, any fee on owner stays.
8. Accounts and access: who owns the listing, reviews and photos, your access level, and what happens to each when the agreement ends.
9. License and permit: your license position in [State], and who holds and renews the local permit.
10. Insurance: the owner's short-term rental cover, your business liability cover, certificates exchanged.
11. Term and notice: start date, [month to month / X months], [X] days written notice, and who handles bookings already made.
12. Records: the monthly statement date, what it shows, how long records are kept.
13. Disputes: how a disagreement is handled and which state's law applies.

Send that list to a lawyer licensed in your state and ask them to turn it into your agreement, or to review the one you have. A template from the internet doesn't know your state's license law, and the licensing chapter showed how much that varies from state to state.

The second owner is easier to win than the first, as long as the first one left a trail. Three kinds of proof do the work: reviews from owners, a results sheet for one home, and an owner who will take a call from the next one.

Owner Reviews by the Rules

Google's policy on prohibited and restricted Maps content bars merchants from offering "incentives – such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services" for reviews. It also bars them from asking only happy customers, in its words "selectively solicit positive reviews from customers," and from discouraging negative reviews.

The FTC's Q&A on its consumer reviews rule is softer on selective asking: the rule has no specific ban, yet "this practice could violate the FTC Act." For reviews shown on your own site, it warns that "organizing reviews in a way that makes it difficult for consumers to know about or find negative reviews" could break Section 5 of the FTC Act. So ask every owner, show every owner review on your site, and keep them in date order.

Before you quote an owner on your website or in a letter, get a yes in writing and ask how they want to be named: full name, first name and town, or only the town.

A One-Page Results Sheet

Numbers persuade investors, and they're the easiest proof to get wrong. Compare the same months a year apart, so a busy season isn't passed off as your work. Show the dates, where each number came from and what else changed, such as new photos, a hot tub or a new permit rule. Share the sheet only with the owner's written permission, and leave off the street address.

Results: [Home description, no street address], [Town]
Shared with the owner's written permission on [Date]

Period: [Months, year] compared with [the same months, year before]
Source of every figure: [Airbnb earnings dashboard / PMS report / owner statements]

Nights booked: [before] to [after]
Average nightly rate: [before] to [after]
Booking revenue: [before] to [after]
Guest rating: [before] to [after]
Average reply time: [before] to [after]

What we changed: [Photos, listing text, prices, minimum stay, cleaning checks]
What else changed: [New amenity, local events, permit rules, the owner's own stays]

Results at one home do not predict results at another. Ask me for the range I would expect for yours.

What Not to Claim

Three kinds of claim get co-hosts in trouble.

• One owner's best year as the norm. The FTC's Endorsement Guides Q&A says that when an endorser reports results and the advertiser can't show most people get them, the ad must make clear what the generally expected results are. It adds, "you shouldn't make claims about a product that would require proof the advertiser doesn't have." Put one home's big jump next to your range for typical homes.
• A tie to Airbnb. Airbnb's Trademark Guidelines have a section for property management companies. It says not to call yourself an "Airbnb Management Company" or claim an "exclusive relationship," and the guidelines bar "Airbnb," "Air," "bnb" and similar terms in a business or website name. You may say you manage or service homes listed on Airbnb, but Airbnb shouldn't be the focus of your site. The site must prominently show a line saying your company "is an independent third party and is not endorsed by or associated with Airbnb, Inc. or its affiliates," placed beneath the button of any earnings calculator or contact form.
• Anything you can't show. Badges you don't hold, homes you don't run, guest reviews of a house presented as reviews of you, and income figures for a home you haven't seen.

Everything in this guide fits into four weeks if you do it in order: rules and paperwork first, then the people who already trust you, then the pages owners check, then outreach to strangers. Each week has four tasks, and most take an hour or two.

At day 30, open the lead sheet. Your counts of owners reached, first calls and signed agreements replace the made-up rates in the outreach math from the chapter on where owners come from. They also tell you which source gets more of next month's hours.

Go back to the calculator. With the example inputs your hour is worth $27.40, and every hour spent fighting a website template is an hour away from owners and homes. The work splits in two: what only you can do, and what you can pay someone else to do.

What a Marketing Agency Can and Cannot Do

An agency can build the site and its town pages, help set up the Google Business Profile, write pages that answer owner questions, run search engine optimization and Google Ads, and work on getting you named in AI answers. It can't take your first calls, earn your owner reviews, answer your state's license question or change a town's permit rules.

No one can promise a top ranking either. Google's page "Do you need an SEO?" warns against anyone who claims to, and against firms that "email you out of the blue." It also lists questions to ask before you hire, and the list below starts from them.

Hire when the paperwork from the 30-day plan is done and you have room for more homes than owners are asking about. Before that, spend the money on the license question and the lawyer.

1. Can you show me sites you built for co-hosts or property managers, and what changed after launch?
2. Who owns the domain, the website, the Google Business Profile and the ad accounts if we stop working together?
3. What is in the monthly fee, and what costs extra? Is ad spend separate from your fee?
4. Do you follow Google Search Essentials?
5. What results do you expect, by when, and how will you measure them?
6. Who writes the town pages, and how do you check the facts in them?
7. How do you work on getting a business named in AI answers, and how do you report it?
8. How often will we talk, and who is my contact?
9. What happens to my site and pages if I leave?
10. Do the sites you build follow Airbnb's trademark guidelines for property managers?

Where Cavmir Fits

Cavmir is one agency to put those questions to. It builds owner-facing websites for co-hosts and managers, and runs SEO, GEO (getting named in AI answers), Google Ads, content, social and email on monthly plans. It says clients own their domain, website, brand files and ad accounts. The page for property managers shows what that work covers.

It isn't the fit for everything. Cavmir is a marketing agency, never a property manager: it doesn't manage homes, handle guests, set nightly rates or sign owners for you. If your license answer isn't in hand, or you have no room for more homes, a new website won't fix that, so start with the 30-day plan. And if you run one or two homes and are just starting, a Google Business Profile and a small site you build yourself may be enough for now.

Monthly plan prices are on the monthly plans page, and website and project prices are on the pricing page.

If you'd like to talk through your town, your homes and what owners there search for, book a call. Whichever route you take, the order stays the same: the license answer, the agreement, the owners who trust you, then the pages and the letters. The next owner who signs will check every one of them.

Every figure in this guide comes from these sources, checked in November 2026. Words in quotation marks are the source's own.

• Airbnb Resource Center, page on joining the Co-Host Network, updated June 5, 2025: airbnb.com
• Airbnb Help Center, "Requirements to join and stay on the Co-Host Network", November 2026: airbnb.com
• Airbnb Help Center, article on setting up a Co-Host Network profile, November 2026: airbnb.com
• Airbnb Help Center, introduction to the Co-Host Network, November 2026: airbnb.com
• Airbnb, "Co-Host Network Additional Terms", November 2026: airbnb.com
• Airbnb Help Center, "How co-host payouts work", November 2026: airbnb.com
• Airbnb Help Center, "How we estimate your earning potential", November 2026: airbnb.com
• Airbnb Resource Center, "Establish your partnership", updated June 5, 2025: airbnb.com
• Airbnb, "Terms of Service", updated February 5, 2026: airbnb.com
• Airbnb Help Center, "Trademark Guidelines", November 2026: airbnb.com
• FindLaw, Tennessee Code section 62-13-104, current as of January 2, 2024: codes.findlaw.com
• Florida Legislature, 2026 Florida Statutes, section 475.011: leg.state.fl.us
• South Carolina Legislature, Code of Laws, Title 40, Chapter 57: scstatehouse.gov
• California Department of Real Estate, licensee alert on short-term rentals, 2016: dre.ca.gov
• Hostfully, "Airbnb Host Fees: The 15.5% Host-Only Fee Explained (2026)", September 28, 2026: hostfully.com
• Evolve, vacation rental management plans and fees, November 2026: evolve.com
• PriceLabs, Market Dashboards, November 2026: hello.pricelabs.co
• Federal Trade Commission, CAN-SPAM Act compliance guide for business: ftc.gov
• Federal Trade Commission, Q&A for telemarketers and sellers about the Do Not Call provisions of the Telemarketing Sales Rule: ftc.gov
• Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute, 47 CFR 64.1200: law.cornell.edu
• Federal Trade Commission, "Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule: Questions and Answers": ftc.gov
• Federal Trade Commission, "FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking": ftc.gov
• Google Business Profile Help, guidelines for representing your business: support.google.com
• Google Maps User Generated Content Policy Help, "Prohibited & restricted content": support.google.com
• Google Search Central, documentation on AI features for site owners: developers.google.com
• Google Search Central, "Do you need an SEO?": developers.google.com
• Cavmir, AI search visibility study of 550 Google AI answers across 15 U.S. markets, July 2026: the full study
• The author's ChatGPT test, one run of one question, November 12, 2026 (no public link).