World’s most prolific Airbnb owner has 881 properties in London, earns £11.9m a year

An Airbnb landlord in London made £11.9 million in a single year, renting out 881 properties, according to new research.

That figure represents the most made in revenue by any owner in the world in the last 12 months, but another landlord was not too far behind, raking in £11.8 million through 504 properties in Bali.

Top owners in cities including Cape Town, Paris and Barcelona all banked at least a million pounds through dozens of flats, rooms, and houses.

The data from Airbnb analysts AirDNA shows how the accommodation website has shifted from flat-sharing to property management, with single operations turning over huge sums of money.

“Airbnb is no longer a community just for individuals renting out their space or properties on their own,” said AirDNA CEO Scott Shatford.

“We’re seeing traditional property management companies operating as many as 1,000 listings.

“These numbers don’t show a multimillionaire sitting on a gold mine. These are businesses that have emerged in this new economy, with hundreds of employees, managing other people’s second homes.”

The figures released to Telegraph Travel show that earnings are highest in Bali, the Indonesian holiday island, where average revenue per user is £31,294, but a typical landlord in Tokyo is still making £27,581 and in London the figure is £16,003.

A spokesperson for Airbnb said that the typical host in the UK earned £3,000 and hosted for three nights a month, adding that the AirDNA data is not official as it has been “scraped”.

Shatford said the way Airbnb listings are managed is shifting.