Gen Z's new side hustle: getting rich off Airbnb

Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez

"Imake $180,000 a month off of properties I don't even own," Hailie Anderson, who's 21, brags matter-of-factly to her 30,000 followers on TikTok. It may sound too good to be true, but she's engaging in a trend that's come to be known as Airbnb arbitrage, where entrepreneurial lessees rent out their apartments or homes on short-term-rental sites, hiking up the nightly price to make a profit on top of what they owe their landlords. It's not uncommon. Most seem to do it quietly. Anderson, however, is part of a particularly brazen and typically young cohort of hosts who flaunt their side hustle online, critics — and in some cases the law — be damned.