Turo recently sent me an email about their new Passive Income Hosting program. You can sign-up and have another host manage your car(s) for you. You keep 70% of the trip earnings and your host keeps the other 30%. I was intrigued, so I signed up to learn more. Let’s dive into some of the details of the progam.
First, signing up doesn’t obligate you to participate. So you don’t really have anything to lose by checking it out. I should mention this isn’t available in every market yet. They’ll let you know about eligibility during the sign-up process. There’s also only a limited number of spots available at the moment, so if you’re interested sign up ASAP.
While the trip earnings might be split 70/30, other revenue items have a very different distribution, such as smoking fees, delivery fees, and gas reimbursements. See the chart below for the owner/host splits. Hosts can arrange for maintenance and repairs but the expense is still the responsiblity of the owner. Other additional fees, such as airport parking, also fall to the owner.
Is it worth it?
Losing 30% of earnings in exchange for not having to deal with the hassles of renting your car (cleaning, photos, communicating with guests, delivering and picking up cars, gas fill-ups, etc.) seems reasonable. But make sure to do the math. If your margins are already thin and your car(s) is barely profitable, this obviously wouldn’t make sense to join. However, if your car is paid off, you don’t need to drive it often, and it has minimal monthly expenses, then this might be the perfect opportunity to earn some passive income.
After the terrible week I’ve had with my cars, the Passive Income Hosting program sounds like a dream. But the reduced earnings have me questioning the viability of doing it based on my current expenses. I might give this a try with one car to start and see how it goes. If you’re interested, you can sign-up here.
