Airbnb hosts in World Cup cities are going big to squeeze every dollar out of their homes

Myriam Totta's early days as an Airbnb host have been marked by a series of disappointments.

She and her husband spent $55,000 over the past year to make their Kansas City-area home more appealing for short-term renters. The four-bedroom home features the kind of touches — cozy TV-watching areas, an outdoor fire pit, and newly purchased furniture — that should be catnip for visitors. Since the listing went live in December, however, the home has drawn only a handful of bookings. The first stay didn't offer much encouragement: the guests trashed the place, causing about $1,200 in damage.

"It was like a baptism by fire," Totta tells me.

She has high hopes for this summer, though, when the FIFA World Cup will deliver tens of thousands of soccer fans to their backyard. Kansas City's selection as one of 16 North American host cities is the main reason she and her husband decided to jump into the rental game — Totta says she was intrigued after hearing about a friend's plans to capitalize on the influx of out-of-towners. With the help of dynamic-pricing software that advises her on daily rates (for which she only pays $20 a month), Totta has set a goal of earning at least $2,500 per night during the festivities.

It's shaping up to be a banner year for rental owners who, like Totta, own properties near some of the country's biggest sports stadiums. From the Super Bowl to the World Cup, there's never been a better time to put a roof over the heads of a couple (or couple dozen) fans who need a place to crash. Airbnb hosts in places like Dallas, Atlanta, and Los Angeles are expected to rake in $212 million from the World Cup alone, according to an analysis by Deloitte (those estimates don't include earnings on other short-term rental platforms like Vrbo). Some operators aim to bank several thousand dollars per night. In Kansas City, for instance, median asking rates for short-term rentals on the night of June 16, when Algeria and Argentina face off in the tournament's group stage, are up more than 200% from a year prior.

The promise of rental riches is drawing everyone from veteran property managers to newbies eager for a piece of the action. In many ways, it's never been easier to try your hand at short-term rentals. If you're looking to squeeze every last dollar out of your home, a vast array of software providers can advise you on pricing and listing strategies. If ease is what you're after, on-the-ground management companies stand ready to handle every last headache (for a fee, of course). But while fans are willing to splurge on top-tier homes in prime locations, some of these wannabe landlords are destined for letdowns. The days of snapping a few iPhone photos and tossing a home on Airbnb with a premium price tag are over. To stand out from their ever-savvier competition, homeowners are decking out their places in decor tailored to the most diehard fans and providing the kinds of flourishes, like freshly made treats or luxury linens, that are typically associated with five-star stays.

Proximity to the stadium is nice. In the cutthroat world of sports houses, though, that's just the start.

The sheer size of the sports tourism market, combined with the growing popularity of non-hotel options for these weary travelers, has made the short-term rental business a natural temptation for anyone within spitting distance of an arena. Sports fans around the country spent a whopping $6.9 billion on lodging in 2024, according to the most recent annual report from the Sports Events and Tourism Association. That same year, Oxford Economics found that short-term rentals saw a larger increase in demand than hotels and cruises combined. The desire for beds near major sporting events has spawned a cottage industry of homeowners who moonlight as landlords a few times a year, investors who buy properties to rent them out to cash-flush fans, and management companies that shoulder the hassle of running mini-hotels.

Rent Like A Champion, founded in 2006 by a couple of Notre Dame alums, started out managing short-term rentals for college-town homeowners looking to make some extra money on busy football weekends. The company now also partners with event organizers like the PGA of America to secure accommodations for fans, corporate clients, and athletes. The vast majority of its hosts are regular homeowners rather than full-time real estate investors, says CEO Dave Longwell, and the most sought-after listings can earn five figures for a weeklong event. But he cautions that the eye-catching paydays are limited.

"If you're 10, 20 miles from the event, you're not going to walk into a quality renter," he tells me. "The customers are savvy."

The experiences of these part-time hosts could offer a road map for those hoping to tap into the World Cup gold rush. Lisa Hinkle, a 63-year-old client of Rent Like A Champion who lives walking distance from Notre Dame's football stadium in South Bend, Indiana, says two-night stays for games can bring in anywhere from $3,500 to $3,800, while the biggest home game of the season — likely the Fighting Irish's matchup against national title runner-up Miami this coming fall — could reach $5,000. Those windfalls don't come easy, though. Hinkle, who works two jobs, says she spends about 10 to 20 hours cleaning and preparing the house for the next guests after a stay. She's carried out various remodels over the years, from upgrading bathrooms to adding more beds so the house can sleep up to 16 people. She pays a friend to help with the cleaning, while Rent Like A Champion takes a 15% cut of her revenue in exchange for finding, vetting, and insuring guests.

"It's good money, but it's a lot of work," Hinkle tells me.

A little flair doesn't hurt, either. Hinkle outfits the house with Notre Dame-branded towels, mugs, and other decor, including Fighting Irish-themed cornhole and an inflatable leprechaun outside on game weekends. She leaves pastries from a local baker and personally checks in with guests, offering flexibility for check-in or check-out times if needed. "I think people appreciate the extra little added touches," she says.

In Indianapolis, JD Holly combines marketing savvy with the old real estate adage of "location, location, location." He owns a few rental homes about a five-minute walk from Lucas Oil Stadium, home to the NFL's Indianapolis Colts and a bevy of big-time events like gaming conventions and Taylor Swift concerts. In landlocked, sports-crazed Indianapolis, that proximity is as good as "beachfront property," says Holly.

The crown jewel of the bunch is a custom-built, two-story home made out of shipping containers and decked out in the Colts' blue and white, with the team's logo painted above the entrance. There's ample space for tailgating outside, while the interior boasts seven TVs, a bar, and accommodations for eight people. During big-game weekends, the place rents for as much as $1,500 a night.

"I'm pretty much shocked that I'm doing this," Holly tells me. "I mean, I never in my life thought I'd be in the short-term rental, hospitality business, but it's fun."

In November, the Kansas City Short-Term Rental Alliance and Missouri Vacation Home Alliance hosted a crash course for homeowners interested in listing their properties for the World Cup. Tyann Marcink Hammond, owner of the vacation rental company Branson Family Retreats and "Queen of Guest Experience," as she's known around the industry, says her message to potential landlords was to shed any social media-induced fantasies of handing off the keys and then "you go sit on a beach with an umbrella drink in your hand." Seemingly simple choices, like the kinds of towels or linens on offer, or how guests will even get inside the house, can give rise to sprawling decision trees that can stump any host.

At the November session — another is scheduled for Feb. 6 and 7 — attendees weren't as concerned with those minute details. Instead, they were most interested in learning about pricing. "People want to know, is it worth their time and energy?" Marcink Hammond tells me. They may also be wondering exactly how much they stand to net when the dust settles. Examples of outlandish paydays abound: If they somehow haven't caught the hubbub around $5,000-a-night listings during the World Cup, then maybe they've heard about the small-town Georgia residents who earn a year's worth of mortgage payments when the Masters Tournament descends upon Augusta. To help homeowners wring every last dollar out of their short-term rentals, tech companies like PriceLabs, Eviivo, and AirDNA offer relatively cheap tools that replace guesswork with science. The abundance of insights, however, can't replace the grunt work of old-fashioned hospitality.

"The more you can communicate that you know what you're doing," Marcink says, "the higher rate that you can get."

Hosts seeking top dollar don't have long to decide whether to join the fray or sit this one out. Jamie Lane, AirDNA's chief economist, says the company has seen strong booking demand for the World Cup on Airbnb and Vrbo, where Kansas City is already more than 40% occupied for the tournament's group stage. Lane says he expects to see a pop of supply a little closer to the event, as more people catch word of the rates their neighbors are getting. But waiting too long could be a losing strategy.

Lane compared the situation to the experience of hosts in Paris prior to the 2024 Olympics. Paris saw a 50% jump in inventory on Airbnb and Vrbo — a "pretty astonishing" increase, Lane says, given that the city is already Airbnb's second-largest market in the world. Most of those new listings came in about three or four months before the event, which gave them enough time to build a little bit of a reputation on the platform. Sophisticated travelers gravitate toward experienced hosts and places with a track record of good reviews, Lane says, and are less likely to gamble on a new listing. If potential World Cup landlords want to get a good rate when things kick off in June, it's a good idea to get some reps in this spring.

Myriam Totta, the Kansas City-area host, hopes to reap the rewards of solid planning. She has some bookings lined up for February and March — "I cannot wait to experience a good guest," she tells me — though the life of a short-term rental host still has its ups and downs. When I talk to her in late January, she's just turned down a prospective $1,000 booking because the guest had received a shaky rating on a recent stay somewhere else.

For now, Totta is following the guidance of her dynamic-pricing software and crossing her fingers for June.

"It will either be a success or it will be a story," Totta says. "So it won't be wasted, right?"

James Rodriguez is a correspondent on Business Insider's Discourse team.