Bali property investing has a favorite story. It’s the story agents love because it sells quickly: nightly rates, occupancy screenshots, and “high Airbnb ROI.” It sounds clean, measurable, and exciting.
It’s also incomplete.
Because the moment you step away from the sales deck and into the day-to-day running of a villa, the real question isn’t how much revenue a property can generate. It’s how much of that revenue survives after operations take their cut.
Short-term rental can absolutely produce strong income. But it’s not “passive.” It’s a machine that needs constant feeding.
High guest turnover means constant resets. Intense usage means faster wear. And the service standard that protects your reviews is the same standard that inflates your overhead. Add in higher management fees and frequent maintenance, and suddenly your “high ROI” becomes a high-maintenance lifestyle.
And here’s the part investors often only learn after they buy: short-term rental comes with hidden cost gravity. Think 15–25% management fees, regular replacements and repairs, cleaning after every stay, and seasonal income swings. When the market slows, your costs don’t politely slow down with it.
Short-term returns can look impressive. The effort is higher, too.
Long-term rental isn’t flashy, so it doesn’t get marketed as aggressively. But it offers what most investors actually need: stability.
Steady monthly income. Lower management fees. Minimal wear and tear. Less operational stress. Often rooted in residential areas, where demand is driven by livability, not tourism mood swings.
If short-term is a sprint fueled by constant motion, long-term is a marathon built on consistency.
This is where the conversation should get honest.
Short-term rental is often optimized for hype, not net returns. Long-term rental is optimized for consistency and profit. And yes, we have seen long-term match or outperform short-term on net ROI, not because long-term is “better,” but because fewer leaks exist in the operating bucket.
Two villas can look identical online. Two ROI projections can look identical in a pitch. But the outcome can be completely different depending on the team behind the scenes.
That’s why the only question worth asking is this:
In our own portfolio, long-term rental delivers up to 18% net ROI with no Airbnb assumptions and no peak-season bias. Just real numbers.
Stop shopping for screenshots. Stop buying the dream of “easy Airbnb money.”
See it. Don’t just study it.
Visit the villas. Meet the team running them. Understand how the ROI is actually built.
Because in Bali, returns aren’t just found on spreadsheets. They’re built in operations.
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