[Poll] Do you manage your listing on your own?

[Jenny]

Hello everyone!  Hope you’ve had a great weekend.

I imagine that over the last couple of days, you’ve spent time looking after your bookings, your rentals, and your guests.  Some of you handle the work yourselves, while others work as part of a team.

My burning question today is “how do you do it?” - you can take part in the poll below - and give us all the details in the comments.

I can’t wait to hear about what works for you!

Jenny

[Robb-And-Julia0]

We routinely hire two adults to work with us to clean our guest house ( 3 b.r. 2 1/2 baths) to achieve a half-day turn-around between parties (at worst).   The summer months are usually half-day or one-day turn-around, so we lean on our crew.  We prefer to run the washer and dryer to change the bedding while the crew vacuums the whole house, sanitize and clean kitchen counters, refrig., appliances, do the bathrooms, dust and sanitize the furniture and make up the beds.  I handle all the listing by computer issues: "email" exchanges leading to booking or not; travel and directions chat - we're in a rural area of western MA -  and handling reviews, etc.  Also the basic stuff preparing for taxes.  Fact is: we're both over 75 and are coping with age-related health issues; so landscaping and snow removal are also environment stuff we hire help for.  If we have a weeks-long break between parties of guests, we may handle the interior cleaning ourselves - taking it slow and careful. 

[Gillian166]

@Robb-And-Julia0 
fair enough! i'm heading down to our abb on our farm for 2 weeks as my 21yo daughter is travelling to Sydney for a friend's birthday, and my mum (74yo) said she'd come down to help me out, cos she has seen how much work it is and clearly thinks it's too much for me to handle. My mum is really fit for her age but still, she's mostly going to do things like put on laundry, iron pillowcases and cook me dinner.  She won't be helping out much with the actual turnovers. This is fine, I dont' want to overload her either. I will add some light gardening jobs to her list but that's about it. It's a rare person who can handle this all on their own. 

[Jenny]

Thanks for replying Julia!  I think slow and careful is a good way to be.  It sounds like you've got a great set-up in place for keeping on top of things.

What kind of advice would you give new hosts who are looking for a crew to help them manage cleaning?

[M199]

@Jenny - Meeting new people, the rest is just another job to be done.

"Thank you so much for replying!

What's your favourite part of the work you do?

Jenny"

[Teri1028]

Perhaps I should’ve said I manage it on my own. I chose team effort because my wife and I manage it together. We have separate responsibilities and responsibilities we share. I handle the initial conversation with guests (both the thank you for booking with us message, messages during a guest’s stay, and the check out reminder. She handles the message detailing the code to enter the house and parking info although since the account is in my name, it looks like I’m doing it.) She handles the door coding for the guests. I generally do the laundry and always clean the bathroom. She vacuums and dusts almost all of the time. Whoever gets to the beds first, does those. I handle the gift basket and the cut flowers we leave for our guests from our garden. I also am in charge of the backyard garden which is a shared space. We have thought about getting a cleaner, but for now, we’re fine as it is. 

[Robin4]

@Jenny 

Hi Jenny, I do do most of the cleaning in our listing myself. I do have a woman acquaintance who comes in 2 days a week and does a 'turn-around' for me for $30 per service, but, when you are only charging $95 per night there is not a lot of 'wiggle room' when it comes to cleaning costs, particularly as I have a cleaning fee of only $15. The funny part about this is, I only gave her this offer to stop her from borrowing money from us! She is a dyed in the wool borrower, and each week wanted to borrow anything up to $100 which I was not comfortable with so, in the end I said to her I would give her $60 per week to service my Airbnb for 2 days out of the 7 and for the most part it has worked. She still wants an advance on future services at times but, I can handle that......she is a cleanaholic, does a great job and we very rarely have a cleaning complaint about her work.

I am probably a bit different from most Jenny in that I don't want, or expect, guests to do a thing when they leave! I want them to walk out and leave the tidying and cleaning up to me! I found out early in the piece guests do not like cleaning things that don't belong to them! They will give dishes a quick rinse and put them away all set for the next guest to mark me down because there were lipstick marks on the glasses or food remnants on the plates! I want everything they have used just left so I can put it all through the dishwasher and make sure it is sparkling clean when it goes in the cupboard. I don't want them to strip the bed and put those blood spotted or spilled wine stained sheets in the washing machine......I want to do that myself and take what ever action is required before they go in the machine.  I don't want them putting their garbage out because they don't separate the recyclables.....everything just gets put in the same bag.

It's my job to service the listing and I work to my standard not that imposed in the house rules on a guest that will consider it an inconvenience to their holiday to clean up!

Although things are not as easy as they used to be I am still capable of managing my own listing and I still enjoy having guests stay here, if I had to hand over the reigns to someone else to do on my behalf, I would give it away.

Cheers........Rob

[Gillian166]

@Robin4  oh you are 100% right about the cleaning thing, i hate it when guests handwash, because i have to pull it all out and double check it and most times i end up giving it another handwash, which irritates me further.  I was reminded of this recently when we had a house inspection done here (on the Gold Coast, we are selling) and I rushed to get things put away and just did a spit and polish of some things. Gross! I realised many guests might just cold water rinse things and dry with a towel and put things away. as you say, that's not good enough. I'd rather run the dw with only a handful of items on a short wash, so i ask all guests to leave dishes out, even if they handwash. 

our guests do separate rubbish, because we have a second tub next to the bin. and all south australians know to keep those 10c bottles out! every 3 months those bottles give us money to fill up a tank of fuel. 

and you have confirmed my experience about hard it is to find people to help out in this local region. too many want to charge the earth, they seem to have zero business skills to understand that they can't charge more than my nightly rate! even 50% of my nightly rate isn't an option. I can clean myself, it's not rocket science, why do they think they can quote me such high rates?  I will look again at hosting wwoofers to help out during busy seasons, at least having international people around is interesting (even if the young ones come with their own set of challenges!).  

[Robin4]

@Gillian166 

Gillian, many people we know say..."How can you offer what you do and still make a profit"? 

You do have to be 'street smart' !

I have an arrangement with the local Woolworths supermarket and when cheeses get within a week or so of their 'use-by' date or, they get a bit 'package handled' in the display cabinet I get them for something between 30c and $1 per cheese.

I turn on a $30 cheese plate for every guest and it costs me no more than $1.

If a carton of coke/pepsi max cans gets dropped out the back in the warehouse, it either goes in the dumpster or, it gets put aside and I get it. I am prepared to sacrifice that couple of cans that might be dented, the rest are just fine......I have never had any complaints from guests.

I bought 3 boxes of Dove moisturising soap on Ebay.....over 1,000 individually boxed cakes of soap for 8c per cake.....every guest gets a boxed cake of Dove soap. I have enough Dove soap here until long after I die!!!

I never spend more than $8.50 per guest night in condiments but every guest ends up with this when they enter the  cottage.......

Presentation is everything and guests do feel special when you pull that cheese plate out of the fridge on arrival and tell them, it's all part of the deal.

But as far as cottage servicing is concerned I tell them....."This is the only similarity between me and the Ritz, when its time to go, just leave and let me take care of the rest"!

Cheers........Rob 

[Gillian166]

ooh @Robin4  you are my spirit animal haha, and you shouldn't share your tricks with someone who shops at the same woolies. i'd be taking that paris creek cheese for myself! !! Perhaps I'll see if the Nairne Foodland will do me a similar deal?  I'm back in the Hills from Sunday, let's def meet up as I think we could be good partners. And if i can offer anything that helps you bump up prices i would love to help. (it seems like every other week there's a new accomm venue in the Hills, did you see The Lane is building some luxurious cabins, have you checked out Monarto's latest news?)

the bulk of my guests are 1 night stays, no need for this stuff. plus i dont' really want anyone cooking in my space. I bought a box of wholesale cookies from Bryon Bay cookie company (and it pained me to do so as i'm a very loyal Sth Australian immigrant!) so i have enough to last me 6 months. But really I don't offer much in the way of food as even the milk is only used 50% of the time. 

[Robin4]

@Gillian166 

Mate, would love to catch up, I have a good relationship with 5 other hosts in the area, we help each other out at times and it works well. We might bend Airbnb's rules a bit but we end up with a good result which benefits not just us, but Airbnb as well. Every 6 or 7 weeks we get together at Millie's (now Lobethal Bakery) in Gawler street over a cup of coffee and have our own little 'Hosts Advisory Board' and discuss our ups and downs and how we can help each other out.

I took over some guests from Lorraine, one lovely host when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Another time I ended up with two confirmed Airbnb reservations at my listing for the same night! Support were  dead bloody useless so I phoned around and relocated one of my reservations to another local listing. We didn't hassle Airbnb, when the payout came I just transferred it into the other hosts account, it all works seamlessly, the only thing they dipped out on was...... the review!

Gill, we are here to help each other, individually we are relatively weak but, collectively we rule the hosting world.

Mt Barker is great because there are no accommodation options here! There are motels in Hahndorf but the only option here in Mt Barker with its 36,000 resident community is the local caravan park!  I am not cutting anyone else's lunch!

According to Porter App I am the number one Airbnb listing in the Adelaide Hills by guest volume but I am still all the time trying to improve what I do. 

I am sure there are some tips that you could give me, just as I could for you.

Any time you are up for it let me know.....I will be there!

Cheers.......Rob

[Gillian166]

@Robin4  I'm keen, i'm down from Qld for the next 2 weeks so let's catch up.  

Mt Barket (and surrounds) are growing massively and we are seriously underserved. Where's the Westfield?? Where's Officeworks (I really miss that one), our Bunnings is :pile_of_poo:. I went recently to buy wallpaper glue and they've discontinued all wallpaper products.  The region is growing and Bunnings are shrinking? (yes yes a new store is "coming soon", at the rate SA moves that will be a decade away). I actually went to my local Bunnings here on the GC and bought a pool thermometer, and the wallpaper glue, to bring down. It's very challenging finding furniture and decor in the Hills, there's either K-mart or somewhere frou frou like Living By Design, but no middle ground. 

I did not even notice there isn't a hotel in the Bark. wow. 

[Robin4]

@Gillian166 

We are about to get the largest Bunnings in the state, on three levels with underground parking! As you take the Mt Barker exit off the freeway you will notice a lot of earth-moving going on on the left hand side......That is our new Bunnings!

The problem is the infrastructure here was designed for the community as it was a decade ago, around 10,000 people. There is 36,000 people in the area now, the market is here and the infrastructure will come, but as you say, the wheels of progress possibly need a bit of a kick along! For all of Ann Ferguson's hair styles and bluster about the area, I don't think she has been the greatest Mayor!

Yeah I am keen for a catch up, I will DM you my mobile number, lets make a time. 

We (and Betts the dog) are leaving here on the 4th May to go over and spend 3 weeks with our girls and grandies on the East Coast, so maybe something week after next.

Cheers........Rob

[Jenny]

I love your style, @Robin4, I think I'd do something similar if I was a host.  I love how you've got an arrangement with the woman that borrowed from you, clearly it suits you both!

How much time do you think you spend on things like cleaning, compared to admin work like managing bookings?

[Robin4]

@Jenny 

For 6 years I was the kitchen coordinator for the local branch of a voluntary meals delivery organisation (Meals on Wheels) and the woman who helps clean for me was one of the regular kitchen staff, which is how I got to know her.  The money borrowing started out quite innocuously with something like..."I am a bit short can you lend me 15 till next monday?" She is reliable, always repaid what she borrowed but, it just became a part of her week....to borrow until next week, or her next pension payment.  It never sat well with me but she was always cheerful, was good at her job and I found it hard to refuse her.  Giving her a couple of cottage services a week was a good solution to the borrowing besides she is always reliable and available on a moments notice, it works well.

It takes me 2 hours to do a cottage turn-around for the next guest. I have a laminated checklist that I tick off as I do items.

Might sound a bit over the top but, it keeps me focused Jenny. Many times I get interruptions during my clean and the laminated sheet keeps me on track and makes sure that I don't miss anything. Once I have finished I put a copy of the sheet in the house rules folder for that guest to try to convey that I have attended to details. 

It is particularly important during these Covid times to, not just be clean, but be seen to be clean......you have to get your point across and with an old building in a garden environment you do have to go that extra yard where cleanliness is concerned.

So cottage servicing and restocking takes most of my time, admin is quick and easy and for the most part looks after itself. I have a set of templates that I use for guest interaction which works well and  using the phone app means I can attend to a lot of activity while I am on the run. I have also set up an Excel spreadsheet that keeps track of my monthly activity........

This screenshot is from a couple of years ago but current ones are much the same, amounts automatically tally, at the end of each month I just put in individual details and the spreadsheet does the rest from there. 

It's a good way of keeping track of what we do. I can at a moments notice bring up my hosting activity for any month or year since we started doing this. We don't make a massive amount of money, but after covering expenses we do now consistently get around $2,000 per month to put in our pockets which goes a long way to making life comfortable for us.

So Jenny, you can see why I like Airbnb, its a hassle free way to earn a bit of money as long as you are aware of it's limitations and don't expect too much of the company.

This is my business not Airbnb's, I just use them to help it happen! 

Cheers.......Rob 

[Gillian166]

@Robin4  and  you're a spreadsheet nerd too. 
nice.