Why I Chose to Shut Down a Profitable Airbnb

Every single month, I turn down a few requests from repeat guests who want to book our property again. Demand is not the issue. In fact, that’s precisely what makes this decision counterintuitive: why shut down something that is working?

Because not everything that works is worth continuing.

Over the past months, running this BnB has been an education in real-world operations involving vendors, maintenance, procurement, and the subtle dynamics of short-term hospitality.

I learned how properties actually function on the ground — coordinating plumbers, carpenters, electricians, cleaners, and handling the constant churn of small but unavoidable issues. It also gave me a sharper view of the growing tourism in our small city, Chandigarh, much of which is clearly influenced by social media.

But operational exposure comes at a cost.

A significant portion of the work is not strategic, it’s reactive. Following up on repairs, managing vendors, checking on cleaning standards, documenting damages, and staying on top of guest communication requires constant attention. It pulls you into a loop of low-leverage tasks that demand time but don’t compound meaningfully.

More importantly, parts of the experience felt misaligned at a personal level.

I found it borderline degrading to have to (even occasionally) deal with poorly-rasied kids, who lacked etiquette, basic courtesy, and disregarded property rules.

My experience was amplified by Airbnb’s review system, which, in its current form, is fundamentally flawed.

There is an inherent imbalance when you are forced to worry about how someone might review your property after they have caused damage and you’ve had to raise a legitimate claim. Instead of focusing on improving the business, you find yourself managing optics and anticipating retaliation.

Guests who have a good experience often move on without leaving reviews. Writing one offers them little tangible benefit. At best, you can persuade about half of them to follow through.

I don’t blame them. Everyone is suffering from review fatigue. Nowadays, you can’t even buy a piece of gum without being asked to leave a review. Imagine booking a hotel or homestay, being perfectly satisfied, and then moving on. Who really wants to go back and write about it?

On the other hand, guests who violate rules or cause damage will most certainly leave poor rating — often as a form of pushback. The result is a skewed system where responsible hosting is indirectly penalized.

Host forums are filled with advice on “timing” damage claims — waiting until the final hours of the 14-day review window to avoid retaliatory reviews. It’s a broken system.

Running a business should not involve mentally tracking review deadlines or strategically delaying legitimate claims. The cognitive overhead alone is unreasonable.

And unlike most platforms, a single poor review here has disproportionate consequences. Visibility drops, rankings suffer, and bookings slow down. You’re not just managing a property — you’re constantly calibrating against an opaque algorithm while navigating human unpredictability.

Financially, the upside does not justify this complexity. For me, it is not meaningful enough to warrant the time, attention, and mental bandwidth required. It also doesn’t support hiring competent management, which means the operational burden remains personal.

I had initially assumed that once systems were in place, the business would run with minimal involvement. That assumption was incorrect. This is not a system-driven model; it is an attention-driven one.

There were positives. A few guests were genuinely pleasant, and the experience offered useful insights — both about the hospitality industry and about my own preferences. It reinforced something I already suspected: I prefer building in environments that are structured, scalable, and do not require constant dealing with a rotating set of people.

This was a valuable experiment, but not a business worth continuing. The time and energy it demands are better invested elsewhere — into work that compounds, aligns with how I operate, and creates more meaningful leverage.

Some things are worth learning from, but not worth holding on to.