Hello everyone 😊
Today we want to invite you to share your experience on what you leave in the refrigerator for your guests. We have noticed two major trends:
What kind of host are you? Maybe you decide not only to offer the basics, but also some additional food items, such as fruits?🥝
Tell us in the comments how has been your experience leaving food in the fridge.
Regards,
A couple of things come into play here.
A/......There are remote hosts who can't spend the time or money on supplying anything other than a rentable space and for many guests that's all they want! They don't want host interaction in any way.
B/.......Then there is the host who is personally involved with their guests, and for these hosts there is more likely to be a hosting experience involved and guests that choose these listings do so for that experience.
I fall in the latter category and I have done deals with a number of the local traders which enables me to offer a wide selection of condiments for my guests.
Every guest gets a cheese plate, eggs and bacon, fruit juice, a bowl of fruit, milk, sparkling and still water, a bottle of wine, crackers and nuts, cereals, bread for toasting, tea and coffee.
plus a range of spreads, pepper & salt and personal wipes and sanitizers.
Sure I go overboard, and if a guest had to supply what I provide it would cost them around $50-$70 but, as I said I am a bargain hunter.
When cheeses and other perishables get close to their use by date or get a bit pulled around in the display cabinet they either go in 'Robs Box' out the back or they go in the supermarket dumpster. I never pay more than 50c for a cheese, a pack of bacon, a carton of fruit juice. And the wine costs me nothing, it was part of a wine shipment the Chinese government rejected in 2020 and got written off to insurance. Here is my current stock of 28 dozen, and it didn't cost me a cent, so every guest gets a bottle of wine! I have enough wine for 5 years of hosting
Although it looks an amazing spread, my average cost per guest night is less than $7.50.
Some guests will clean me out, take everything with them when they go! Their rationale is, 'we are paying for it we might as well take it'! Other guests (mainly overnighters) will use nothing, and then there are those in between that will use just what they fancy so, the cost to supply all this is pretty minimal.
It all goes to form part of a welcoming homely type of hosting. It won't be practical and doesn't suit lots of hosts........but it works well for me!
Cheers........Rob.
A couple of things come into play here.
A/......There are remote hosts who can't spend the time or money on supplying anything other than a rentable space and for many guests that's all they want! They don't want host interaction in any way.
B/.......Then there is the host who is personally involved with their guests, and for these hosts there is more likely to be a hosting experience involved and guests that choose these listings do so for that experience.
I fall in the latter category and I have done deals with a number of the local traders which enables me to offer a wide selection of condiments for my guests.
Every guest gets a cheese plate, eggs and bacon, fruit juice, a bowl of fruit, milk, sparkling and still water, a bottle of wine, crackers and nuts, cereals, bread for toasting, tea and coffee.
plus a range of spreads, pepper & salt and personal wipes and sanitizers.
Sure I go overboard, and if a guest had to supply what I provide it would cost them around $50-$70 but, as I said I am a bargain hunter.
When cheeses and other perishables get close to their use by date or get a bit pulled around in the display cabinet they either go in 'Robs Box' out the back or they go in the supermarket dumpster. I never pay more than 50c for a cheese, a pack of bacon, a carton of fruit juice. And the wine costs me nothing, it was part of a wine shipment the Chinese government rejected in 2020 and got written off to insurance. Here is my current stock of 28 dozen, and it didn't cost me a cent, so every guest gets a bottle of wine! I have enough wine for 5 years of hosting
Although it looks an amazing spread, my average cost per guest night is less than $7.50.
Some guests will clean me out, take everything with them when they go! Their rationale is, 'we are paying for it we might as well take it'! Other guests (mainly overnighters) will use nothing, and then there are those in between that will use just what they fancy so, the cost to supply all this is pretty minimal.
It all goes to form part of a welcoming homely type of hosting. It won't be practical and doesn't suit lots of hosts........but it works well for me!
Cheers........Rob.
As a host Elisa, you never argue with a guest, you are being paid for the 'privilege' of having them stay in your property, so you accept that they are all going to treat their stay a bit differently. Most are just lovely people, some of whom have become our friends and stay on a regular basis. Many are just a business transaction, they pay their money, stay and I try to give them good value. We part with a handshake or a hug and the experience is mutually beneficial to both of us.
In reality, of the 1,000 + stays we have had here, there is less than a dozen I would not want to see walk up my driveway again!
But back to your question, hosting is about the law of averages, some you will win on some you will lose. If I am going to put it out there, I have to expect that it will be lost or consumed......and that's fine, I allow for it in my listing charge. If I found the percentage of guests who cleaned me out rose, I would have to raise my listing price to cover it.
I run an Excel spreadsheet which details every aspect of my profit & loss so I can tell at any given time if I am making money or losing it!
And I can tell you now, I don't lose it! Here is an old spreadsheet from 2018 when I was only charging $82 pr night. I have gone up 30% since then, but I still run a spreadsheet every month and smart buying has meant my profit margins now are considerably better than they were in 2018.
With 20 seconds notice I can bring up the full details of any guest I have ever hosted. How much they cost me and how much I received, even the GST and service fees. It's just common sense to do this.
I do not offer up front discounts, I do not use 'Smart Pricing', I do not set seasonal pricing! These things are not deigned to help the host, they are designed to have hosts canabalise each other and not let a potential booking escape to another platform. It's all about Airbnb and their service fee, not the host! You cannot run a business not knowing from one day to the next what your pricing and profit margin will be.....that's a short cut to ruin!
That's not to say I don't offer rewards! But I will offer a refund at the end of the stay when I can objectively work out what discount might be appropriate for that stay.
Elisa, hosting is a business, you have to be thorough with your costings, not just pluck amounts out of the air.
Cheers.......Rob.
*Image edited to remove personal information*
Here is the spreadsheet I use to set my price. It is fully editable and I do make alterations to it from time to time.
The main comment people will make is..."Why on earth are you doing this if you are only making a possible maximum of $500 per week out of it"?
My answer to that is, I don't need to do this......it's money in my pocket! I could increase my rate by 50% and still be virtually fully booked but, by doing so I introduce a whole lot of other issues. We do earn income from other investments and I would suddenly complicate my life exponentially by lifting my net annual profit from STR above $15,200 AU.
A/......We would be put into the next income tax bracket raising our tax rate in the dollar.
B/........We would loose a percentage of our Centrelink benefits like bulk billing of health accounts and free public transport.
C/.......Our retirement pension benefit would be reduced.
Anything extra we earned would be offset by restriction in our entitlements.
The other thing is, the more a guest pays, the more they expect for their money. The more critical they become!
But, that aside I consider it is essential to know what your costs are before setting your listing price. Too many hosts simply price by what others in their area charge, a policy which Airbnb actually encourages. I blame Airbnb for much of this by continuing for years to send out crass, stupid emails like this to hosts........
But you can't price your listing that way because every host's costs will vary. Although we might seem to offer similar amenities, some of us have freehold properties, we produce our own electricity, we do our own cleaning! There is no way a remote host can compete purely on a price basis with what most onsite hosts offer.
And even with our limited outgoings when looking at my 'profit and loss' can you imagine if I followed Airbnb's advice and lowered my listing amount by $33 per night! Do you think I would make more money? It's completely stupid, it simply would not be worth it!
Hosting is just not viable for many hosts, but they are swayed by the smooth talk of making fistfuls of money by short term renting.......all they need to be is, cheap enough! Disaster.
There are plenty of accounting programs on the market these days, I can't stress strongly enough, arm yourself with one and set your Airbnb listing up on a proper financial footing.....that way you will be successful.
Cheers........Rob.
