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Genting Highlands Malaysia AirBnb Business Review

I have one AirBnb property in Genting Highlands. My Airbnb unit is at Windmill Upon Hills near Genting Permai.

windmill upon hills airbnb in genting highlands

When I first invested for Airbnb, I thought I can get good return at least net income of RM1,000 per month after deduction of loan installment, maintenance fee and assessment tax.

But in reality, the return was not that good because there are so many competitors and visitors are seasonal.

Competitors especially AirBnb operators are willing to drop price RM100 per night for one bedroom.

Occupancy

Peak Season

During public holidays, school holidays and if got concert at Genting, they will be lots of booking. It will be full.

Non Peak Season

For non peak, I had experience there is no booking for a month except if you are willing to drop price drastically which I’m not.

Airbnb Income

Average Airbnb income is around RM2,000 per month for 2 bedrooms for price RM250 to RM300 per night. Usually my unit only have booking during weekend for 1 night and no booking for weekdays if non peak season.

Managing Airbnb Unit

Managing Airbnb unit will consume lots of your time vs renting it out outright. If you want to command higher rental, you must maintain good reviews. To maintain good review, you must ensure everything is tip top.

Even myself nearly every month, I will do deep cleaning personally to ensure sparkling cleanliness. You can’t depend on your cleaner. They only clean on the surface only.

Competitions

As you can see, most competitors put price at RM100++ while I’m putting at RM250++. To ensure I can put higher price, I put better amenities and ensure cleanliness is sparkling clean.

There more condominiums coming up at Genting Highlands so it will be tough for everyone.

List of Other Airbnb in Genting Permai

1) Windmill Upon Hills
2) Vista Residences
3) Midhills Genting
4) Geo38

Upcoming Condominiums

1) Genting Xintiandi XTD
2) Antara Genting
3) Geo Antharas
4) Tropicana Grandhills
5) IBN Highlands

Conclusion

If the sales person saying that the rental is very good for Airbnb, please don’t trust them. Even current operators not doing that well.

If you plan to have high return, you should reconsider your investment but if you plan as your vacation home by all means you can buy a property in Genting Highlands.

Condominium Buying Criteria For Airbnb

I have one Airbnb unit at Genting Highlands. I did my analysis before investing in that area.

Criteria to Consider Before Buying a Condominium for Airbnb

1) Potentials visitors to the particular area

Check the number of visitors to the area. For Genting Highlands, the number of visitors is easy to get. If you search on the internet you can find it is around 22 millions visitors per year.

2) Current offerings

Check whether the current hotels or Airbnb capacity. If more than enough, than you should reconsider your investment.

If you can get the numbers of rooms within the area will give you better accurate analysis.

In my case, during my analysis the hotel capacity never enough at Genting Highlands especially during peak season.

3) Local law on Airbnb

Check whether local law allows any Airbnb. Recently Penang state government bans Airbnb in the state.

4) Joint Management Body (JMB) supports of Airbnb

Check whether the JMB is supportive or no any Airbnb unit in the condominium. If most of the residents of the condo lives in the units, you will face challenges doing Airbnb in the condominium.

In my case, most of the buyers plan for investment so the JMB will be supportive of Airbnb visitors to the condo.

5) Amenities

Check the amenities provided by the condominium. Put yourself whether you would like to have the amenities if you are a guest to the condominium.

Besides, check your competitors amenities as well example they have heated swimming pool or no (which is a must in Genting Highlands)

If you like it, then it is a good buy.

6) Number of lifts

During check out, the waiting time will be terrible if the number of lifts are not enough to cater for the visitors traffic.

Most of condominium in Genting Highlands, visitors have to wait more than 30 minutes during check out time.

7) Future competition

Check any future development within the area, new condominium will be your future competitions and will reduce further your unit occupancy.

In Genting Highlands, there are so many condominium under development that I’m afraid will impact on my profitability.

Airbnb List of Items to Maintain Regularly

I have an Airbnb unit in Genting Highlands. Cleanliness is most important thing to ensure you have good rating.

Besides cleaning up the unit every time a guest checks out. Below are items that need to be maintain regularly or do deep cleaning.

No	Item	Frequency	Notes
1	Aircond	Everytime dust is in the aircond grille
2	Lanyard for the passcard	Every 3 months	Soak it in soap water for 1 night then wash
3	Floor mat	Every 3 months	Soak it in soap water for 2 nights then wash
4	Ceiling fan	Every time has visible dust
5	Dust on any items in the unit	Every 2 months
6	Replace TV & aircond remote battery	Every 2 months	Use battery tester. I use Panasonic Evolta battery as it last 2 times longer than Energizer
7	Floor trap	Every 2 months
8	Deep cleaning toilet bowl	Every 2 months
9	Fill up the liquid soap, shampoo and washing powder	Every time is half full
10	Vacuum carpet and under it	Every 2 months
11	Clean under sofa and bed	Every 2 months
12	Lubricate door & windows	Every 6 months	Use WD40
13	Glossy the mirror	Every 2 months	Use kleenex
14	Glossy water faucet and shower faucet	Every 4 months	Use metal polish
15	Clean toothbrush holder	Every 2 months
16	Add trash plastics	Every time half is used

Airbnb Malaysia Payment Not Received

We have an Airbnb listing at Genting Permai. All the while we receive Airbnb payments without any problems.

Unfortunately we don’t receive one of payments amounted to around RM300. We received an email from Airbnb saying that the payment will be in by latest 13th June 2022.

Payment Method

For Airbnb payment method, we use bank transfer. You just need to fill in your correct SWIFT code. You can get your SWIFT code from your bank.

Where to Get Airbnb Online Support

At footer of Airbnb website, click the link of “Help Centre”.

At the support page, you can see “Contact Us” to contact Airbnb online support.

airbnb support - click the link — airbnb support – click the link

Airbnb Online Support

After contacting Airbnb support, immediately we received phone call from Airbnb.

I think Airbnb gives priority support to superhost like us.

airbnb fast call from support 14 jun 2022

According to Airbnb, they already transferred the money to our bank account. We should check with our bank whether the fund is floating.

When we contacted our bank, according to them there is not floating fund to our account.

The bank asked us to get ARN number from Airbnb to confirm that they did transfer the money.

An acquirer reference number, or ARN, is a unique number created in credit or debit card transactions when it transfers from the merchant’s bank through the payment processor, and to the card holder’s bank.

These unique digits make your transaction traceable so if an error occurs with the bank or merchant accounts, the information can be found.

Payment Received

After we informed Airbnb to give us the ARN number. The support agent forwarded our request to another Airbnb agent who was specialist in money transfer problem.

airbnb payment not received - tracing payment transaction — airbnb payment not received – tracing payment transaction

After the tracing was done, we received the payment within 5 hours.